CX redemption
 

For those that redeem using CX miles, can you confirm that there are less J seats available even within 1-2 weeks of departure? I use BA miles to redeem and it appears that there are zero premium class available in the next 2 weeks. IT the past, Id' see some F and J seats open close in but now there aren't any. Also, since they've removed all F cabins, wouldn't a few extra J seat show up for redemption close in?

CX is also selling the premium seats and this leaves less opportunity for redemption.

You could check expertflyer for loading to get an idea of how many revenue J/F seats are available. 2-3 weeks out is when you'll see them pop up, but with more sophisticated travellers around - these are often snapped up with in hours of being released.

Additionally, although this won't help you with BA - being an Asia Miles member you can wait-list seats which essentially lock you in at that rate if it's released.

Yeah, but since this time period isn't a major holiday and in the past there would be seats available, it doesn't look good for my chance in December when there are more traveler. There are just so much more J seats available that I thought a few would be open for redemption but I guess maybe the waitlisted folks are snapping those up.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 7_0_2 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/537.51.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/7.0 Mobile/11A501 Safari/9537.53)

Whats ur routing? All longhaul to hk last wk and lhr to hk tmr is all jam packed so not surprised u cant redeem. Normally they free up some space.

I think they definitely narrowed down but take this with a grain of salt...
during the summer i noticed that partner U class opened at T-6 to 7 days
then starting in september it became more like T-4 to 5 days
recently, nothing until T-72 or T-48 (or even T-24)

however I also see some dates in november (on my regular route ORD-HKG) wide open to partner redemptions in J. not sure if its the same case for other outports and HKG...

SFO-HKG

I see nothing available and that's with 3 flights a day now and all business class in place of F class. wow, didn't know that with an extra flight and extra J seats it's completely packed. Sucks for redemptions now I guess.

I see nothing for sfo-hkg for weeks out in J. I was able to snatch two seats year out for wife and daughter for December and was hoping I could upgrade myself and other girl but it doesn't look good.

I can't believe that this route was able to absorbed a full extra flight and still not have any extra J seats within a week before departure! Plus it's not a major holiday right now, why are all flights soooo full?
Imagine how full it would be during Christmas!

We usually buy tickets with short notice, but I bought my wife's Sep-Oct SFO-HKG-SFO flight in late June, three months ahead of her departure. The reason was redemption availability. She wasn't able to get her return upgrade redemption with her SL status. I had to use my AM (as a DM) to upgrade her for the late Oct return.

CX has no problem filling up their cabins including J. I could see that in my two trips last November before Thanksgiving and December before Christmas. It would not be easy if I did not have a DM status.

Most holiday travelers fly in Y, but many business travelers fly in J before the holidays.

There are three flights only on some days. There is always one flight (CX 873) with F and plenty of J seats. However, J cabins do get full. There are many business travelers booking their flights within the last few days.

Interesting.. I've been check the last week and have only found 1 J seat out of sfo to hkg. I guess it's pretty much the end for redemption unless you get the 2 seats that are released up front.

I'll continue to monitor to see if it gets better.