On at least 1/3, perhaps 50% of the F flights I'm on (mainly NA), a chatty passenger usually informs me they're flying on an AA award. It's unscientific but I feel confident saying there's a lot.

Oh, this is completely on my own ignorance of loyalty games and arbitrage. It's basically on me for being ignorant to this "game". Long story short, over the years I was pretty ignorant about thinking outside the CX loyalty box. So I accrued all to MPC within OW. I spent cash on CX, accrued AM points, and used a combination of cash and AM to fly CX F. Never in my wildest dreams could I think such insane F arbitrage was going on! Call it mileage program naivete. I thought, naturally the best route to CX F is to a.) pay cash for J and F fares, and b.) subsequently accrue mileage in CX's own loyalty program and then burn those accrued miles in F. Oops! In reality I may have paid 10k USD for seat 2D while the guy in 1A had perhaps more intelligently banked their miles (to AA or Alaska), or bought miles in those programs, or even churned a bunch of credit cards for sign-up bonuses! Of course, this is on me but trust me when I realized the that I was the "loser" in a bargain for perhaps 7-8 years, I was admittedly incredulous when I discovered this was going on. Imagine someone telling you that you had possibly spent $100-$200k USD totally unnecessarily, and the airline selling you those seats was happily permitting this. I am aware of price discrimination, of course I do pay $5 USD or whatever for a Coke at the movie theater when I can buy it for $0.75 at 7-11. But when we're talking about tens of thousands of dollars for tickets, versus the possibility to literally fly for free or almost free, yikes that did sting a little bit when I found out.

There are other small issues, like me paying cash for a ticket 2 days before departure and getting seat 2D or 4D (back in the 74K days), when redeemers assigned preferred seats 180 days ago or whatever. This kinda rubs me the wrong way. I do think the window seats in F are superior to the middles, and back on the 74K/74A days I didn't really like 4D very much either (plus it couldn't fit my plug-in headphones because the headphone cubby was smaller than the rest). But hopefully this helps explain.

Except many other carriers put their flagship products on non-B777 aircraft. :-:

Well, maybe after you witnessed how 3 American teenagers managed to take over the CX F cabin in a B777 and *overwhelmed* everyone else? There is nothing remotely *private* about CX F seats, anyone who walks by your seat can see clearly what you are doing without even trying. Anything else is just hair splitting.


Sorry, I doubt you have actually been to either LH FCT or FCL. The bold part highlighted by me suggest you have not actually been to either. Had you actually been as you claimed you did, you would have known they have private day bedrooms in both FCT or FCL for customers to use on a first come come first serve basis. They are entirely enclosed private rooms which can be locked.

Interesting that you have a crystal ball and know where i have been, The day beds in Lufthansa F are separate sleeping rooms for sleeping only. Its not a big bathroom like the cabana with a daybed large area and a tub. don't compare apples and oranges.

It's coming back in 2016
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maybac...rcedes-Maybach

Guava highlighted the day bed. I am not sure where that is a bed or a sofa. It is wide enough as a bed for two persons (marginal though), and is definitely wide enough for me to sleep on with plenty of room. Unfortunately there are only five cabanas rooms.

I can't comment on FCT or TPR or toothbrushes in toilets or bars cos I travel on miles and am challenged to muster the *A miles or the annual leave to do all that.

But I'm thinking - even if kat007 and guava are right, so what? CX F doesn't have to actually be the best in the sky, just maybe market itself to be.

The key fact is CX only has to compete for O&D traffic. You can't fly F-to-F through HK for a lot of CX's destinations (and if we call KA "F" for what it really is then KA has no F at all).

So the ME3 can put a Relais & Chateaux property on an A380 and fly it here but still not take a lot of CX's F traffic.

To me the only thing CX has to do for F is offer enough to convince a few J passengers to pay three or four times the J fare to go F. Some of the rest will go to award seats.

And I'm not surprised it's not finding this offering profitable over time.

I agree with your post, full of common sense ;).
CX strength in F is the nonstop flight. Someone who pays F (personally or though company) will not switch to ME3 F with a stopover in DXB whatever the added luxury on EK (EY and QR do not fly F to HKG).

Two other remarks.
I have flown some 20 or more CX F flights to/from Europe in the past eight years (paid, upgrade or full awards). I (or my wife) often chat with other pax. This is good for building business relations. I do not remember ever engaging conversation with an AA full award guy. There are indeed quite a few upgrading with miles from J, mostly CX or BA FFPs. I regard those as semi-paid F, enjoying the luxury of F over J once in a while in their busy business travel schedule.
I am old and loaded with hand luggage. Quite painful to land after a long flight and tire my knees with a long walk. My main complaint with CX F is that they don't provide buggy. I know that I can grab one for only HKD60, but they are often none available; and I do not wish to spend the time trying to book one. CX F should provide it, especially for the low cost (CX is probably charged less than 50).

PS: A lot of pax do not have to pay three or four times J fare. I usually get CX F for twice or less than twice the cheapest-available business class fare.

After doing some researches Best HKG-JFK flight in F? following a bad experience with JL F where food was almost non-existent due to being a red eye flight, lounge at SFO was very bad and opened VERY limited time of two hours... OP was shocked about the high taxes to be paid for the redemption.

After being reassured about his concerns Are these fees/taxes normal? I can see why getting a second PJ was important to recover the 70$ out of pocket.

One of the funniest post in a while!

*shudders* If you're ever on board with me please leave me alone :D

I have several pairs of these NH PJs. I have never been asked to return them.

:confused: You cannot upgrade with BA miles (avios) on a CX-operated flight. Using BAEC, you can only upgrade with miles on BA, IB and AA-operated flights. If they are using BAEC, then they are on a full miles award, not an upgrade award.

I am struggling to see what makes you think HKIA is this incredibly efficient. Maybe I am missing something terribly here but the distance between each gate at HKIA in my experience is at least twice or more of an average U.S. airport such that to walk even just the distance of 10 gates to get to where you need to be - it's going to take significantly longer in a straight line path no matter how you count the time. Also, HK has always comes across to me, as a place where the rich get preferential treatment whereas the peasants and the cattle class are left to rot. It's very hard for me to vision an accurate experience of an economy class pax ex-HKG since I have not personally been one as far as I can remember although I have heard quite a bit of horror stories re: how Cathay mistreat economy class pax especially if they are not westerners or on package tours and were left stranded in the airport and etc.. Are these stories not true? I find it hard to believe HKG will be more humane towards economy class pax than some of the more egalitarian major European airports, especially the German ones, just strikes me as quite improbable knowing the prevailing culture in HK vs. Germany.

There are many people who pay more to fly in economy than some who rode discounted business class. Not everyone can purchase their tickets far in advance or have great flexibility in the timing of their flights. And not every company will pay business class or better either but will pay for high end economy class fare when justified by say schedule.

To dismiss all economy class pax as undesirable would be a monumental business mistake.

And there are none in the Pier or any kind of Day Room. Cathay makes it clear with the new The Pier that they are getting rid of the cabanas because they take up too much space and they don't want their pax to use the lounges as pseudo-hotels per a The Pier staff. Once again, I think CX is making a mistake with this decision. While HKG is not DBX or DOH, it is still a hub airport with sufficient amount of traffic around the clock. Even an airport like FRA where there are much less traffic after 10PM understand that business travellers value their nap time and day rooms are a welcome addition. It's perfectly justifiable not wanting to turn lounges into pseudo-hotels, that I can agree with but to eliminate day rooms, no, terrible idea. And you know what happens with these new CX lounges? So some guests instead just commandeered public space, took off their shoes & soxes and turned certain area into their "private beds". It looked absolutely awful and 3rd world like. I saw it last month, it wasn't pretty.

There was a time when U.S. carriers (UA, AA) actually had respectable Int'l First Class not so long ago. Without a doubt, the U.S. has the market for First Class traffic but both airlines, along with DL, have largely moved away from an Int'l First Class strategy and it ain't because the U.S. can't support sufficient First class traffic, not at all. So it begs to ask, if First Class class only needs to marginally better than J, why is that the U.S. carriers can't utilize their home court advantage and maintain their market share of First Class pax to/from the U.S. in the past decade?

I think your sentiment and that of brunos who agreed with you oversimplified the situation. First Class traffic is especially difficult to maintain and very expensive but they are also extremely profitable when done well. The problem with CX's strategy is its internal inconsistency. There are only 6 F seats per CX flight on a B777 - which is consistent with the industry's trend. But by reducing the number of F seats, the logic is maintain a small but exclusive yet demanding audience. Instead, CX has been busy cutting corners here and there, which is detrimental to how the product is perceived by the discerned travellers it supposedly wants to keep when it reduced the number of seats to 6. Simply put, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Airlines like AF has also gone for the exclusive approach by reducing their seats but they focused on upping their offering by bringing back the caviar service and enchanced the La Première lounge in their CDG homebase. Others like BA instead, adopted a competitive pricing model where their F class capacity is higher, allowing BA to compete in the F market with lower prices, whether directly or indirectly. So BA is one of the very few majors who don't have caviar in F but they have been upfront about it with their very attractive prices. CX is acting like AF and BA simultaneously and that is not a good thing - it's unclear whom the CX management think they are targeting, the discerned travellers or those who are willing to pay little more than J or sometimes even less than J to fly F?

I am going to challenge you on that thought, which is a very commonly held perception but I have come to question, with reasons. The conventional logic is that, for example, a business traveller from Europe to Asia/Australia will prefer direct flights instead of making a connection in DXB/DOH. That however has been thoroughly debunked in recent years with the rise of ME3 or even Turkish Airlines for example. ME3 and Turkish have taken away so much premium traffic that the European airlines are under a lot of pressure to compete against them. In fact, it wasn't just the European airlines, even as far back as 2008, Dubai - by extension, the UAE fought a very public battle with Canada over EK's landing rights in Canada. The dispute got so bitter that the UAE retaliated by imposing visas on Canadians, opposed Canada's bid on UN Security Council and tried to remove ICAO from Montreal. Canadian government retorted by inferring the UAE as being a terrorist country. All for what? The Canadian government tried to protect Air Canada from EK's competition. If you look at AC's main routes however, they should have very little competition from EK so why did the two countries go into such bitter battle with each other on AC vs. EK? I don't think you can explain it with the conventional logic. Then lately, the U.S. big 3 carriers are starting to feel the heat from the ME3 and they have been lobbying hard against them. Once again, with such major home court advantage, what do the U.S. carriers have to fear?

Suffice to say, I think both the points you are making and that of percysmith are a little outdated. They may very well be true 10 years ago, but not anymore.

Just to say that the "divider thing" never works for me! I don't feel any privacy with a tiny thin divider. That's why for CX J I always opt for A/K seat, and CX F feels far more private to me than anything that relies on an divider.

No, it was Qatar and not the UAE who pushed in 2012-13 to have ICAO's headquarters moved to Doha.

As for the Canadian government inferring that the UAE is a terrorist country, you should get your facts straight and read the last sentence of the second paragraph:

http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca....aspx?lang=eng

Oh that actually was in one of the threads that I really responded in regards to CX888! :) Sometimes I am delighted to hear some over-entitled passengers/elites who forced UA/AA to change their award chart.

You got some potential to be a great auditor.