Originally Posted by AA_EXP09 (Post 27632149)

EK's airport experience (flying QF DXBLON v.v in Y as OWE) is still far better than the same flight on BA with same status.
(admittedly, I flew the BA flight before they opened their DXB lounge, but even from reports, it still doesn't seem comparable to the EK F lounge.)

Originally Posted by PaulInTheSky (Post 27625894)

HKG is, by far, one of the most competitive market in commercial airline industry. All premium airlines with nice F cabin flies to HKG. No only does CX have to compete all of them, but they also have to compete against all other LCCs. In the case of F, yes, Business 101 makes perfect sense for us to treat the customers with A/F paid customers first, but it is going a bit too far to compare award takers and paid customers. At the end, they are still paid, but in different currencies agreed by CX. That is a bit extreme. You also couldn't say the same to people who fly out of the other countries, paid 50% or even less to fly CX F and CX has to treat hub captives better than them. In the eyes of CX they are luring the other customers away from their competing airlines.

Originally Posted by percysmith (Post 27632299)

Funny. Non-HKers perceive us to be very competitive:

...Personally I believe PaulInTheSky is misinformed: yes lots of airlines fly nice F here, but who cares about a product that is paid for by miles more than by cash? CX may be receiving more cash for long-haul Business seats *on average* than long-haul First because corporates pay fares for the former.

Originally Posted by percysmith (Post 27632295)

Originally Posted by percysmith View Post
Funny. Non-HKers perceive us to be very competitive:

...Personally I believe PaulInTheSky is misinformed: yes lots of airlines fly nice F here, but who cares about a product that is paid for by miles more than by cash? CX may be receiving more cash for long-haul Business seats *on average* than long-haul First because corporates pay fares for the former.

Originally Posted by hl176 (Post 27632571)

Finally, CX changed their praline setup in F. They now serve two business class style chocolates in an individual box. The purser said this has been the norm since last month

Originally Posted by PaulInTheSky (Post 27632509)

I am actually born and raised in HKG, it's just that I am currently in the US, so perhaps I don't know the current exact situation. When I mentioned 'lesser evil of the two', I meant:

1. Paid F/J customers seeing non-revs self-upgrading to their cabin chitchatting with the crew and making the crew not being able to serve other paid F/J customers.

vs.

1. Paid F/J customers seeing award takers on the route.

If F/J customers are equally disgusted(I would be, in either case), then it makes no difference how CX releases the F awards right? Now, you can find 'Blog with Lucky' getting on EK, SQ, AF F, which I believe mostly in points. As long as you can game the systems(e.g. using AS, CA, and AA miles to redeem CX F or other F cabin), you could get any F seats you want. Should paid customers be bad? If so, they are mad all the time. AF/KL/AY, DL/UA are all selling surplus of J/F seats at a huge discount than the market prices close to day of departure. If one pays 20k USD, should they bad pissed at others paying upgrade fees to sit at the same cabin as them, or maybe get treated worse because they have no status? To me, this is more of the first world problem than anything else.

IMHO, US treats the unions and the FAs way too well - Non-revs proaching AA F, UA F, and DL J when all the seats go unsold or they don't get released to the award takers, so half of the F seats will be taken by the non-revs at the gate. I hate that way more than what CX is doing - Leaving most space to awards. At least the other airlines pay the miles to fly their customers on CX. I do know CX treats their employees pretty bad. I know a couple of FAs telling me they couldn't even get J seats easily on stand-by. To me, getting free seats, Y+/Y is already a huge perk. If you see all non-revs sitting in Fs, I bet you would raise the similar questions as UA or DL people did in their forums:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...ss-j-gpus.html

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delt...ployees-4.html

To us, you better hope CX keep doing this, or else we would see overall less award seats released to AM/MPCs, or any other OneWorld partners.

At the end, would you rather have CX release more Y seats like UA/DL so you can redeem to get on them while non-revs get on all the F seats, or, CX releases more F seats, then keep the non-revs on Y?

I would certainly hope the former, as the customer perspective. Not that I would definitely redeem 110k BA/AA miles for CX F for sure, however. :)

Originally Posted by Ausriver (Post 27636622)

Paid F pax doesn't care how others "paid" for their F seats.

If company paid for them, they wouldn't care.
If they paid with their own money at regular price, they wouldn't care.
If they paid with their own money at heavily discounted price, they wouldn't care.
If they paid with miles, they wouldn't care.
If they paid with J and OP-up, they wouldn't care.

Originally Posted by QRC3288 (Post 27636800)

Anyway, I will say that I really feel stupid because for over half my time in Asia I've paid my own way. This isn't some corporate's money...it's mine. And I feel like a moron.

Originally Posted by sponge_gto (Post 27641676)

... Be glad you can afford more than them ;)

Originally Posted by Cathay Dragon 666 (Post 27641203)

Honestly, I can care less.

Originally Posted by Ausriver (Post 27636622)

Paid F pax doesn't care how others "paid" for their F seats.

If company paid for them, they wouldn't care.
If they paid with their own money at regular price, they wouldn't care.
If they paid with their own money at heavily discounted price, they wouldn't care.
If they paid with miles, they wouldn't care.
If they paid with J and OP-up, they wouldn't care.

Originally Posted by QRC3288 (Post 27636800)

I'm not sure exactly what Paul is talking about, but I can speak from my own personal experience. Anecdotes can be deceptive I know, so take this with a grain of salt but it's just my own experience.

I had observed the debates here from afar, about how award programs and all these mileage are actually "payment" and whatnot and hadn't really thought about it. But once I tried it, I realized how screwy the whole system really is. The reason I feel comfortable saying the system is screwy is CX is losing a significant chunk of my revenue now. Revenue that would've gone to last minute J and F cash tickets (the most expensive types!), ironically these very tickets have become my least expensive tickets!

I cannot imagine the airline is expecting their absolute, rock-bottom cheapest "filler" F (and J) tickets to be cannibalizing their most expensive. Something is badly askew with revenue management when that's occurring. This isn't rocket science. The blame lies squarely CX.

Anyway, I will say that I really feel stupid because for over half my time in Asia I've paid my own way. This isn't some corporate's money...it's mine. And I feel like a moron. I don't think a company should put their cash paying customers in a position to feel like they were absolute idiots just for not knowing a trick to paying literally 1/10 to 1/15 the price. You may think I'm a little off the mark, but just sharing my personal feelings. I really like looking at the pictures at the One Mile Time blog and the others but I can't help but feel a tinge of pain because there is no free lunch....it was my wallet and others' who don't know any better who are basically subsidizing that frequent flier mileage party. It just doesn't feel right to me. And everyone I've mentioned this to, all of whom also pay for their tickets, are pretty jawstruck at the realization.

Of course, the airlines are the fools for setting this all up like it. And now they depend on those mileage tickets because there are too many premium seats, particularly F. I'll also add that J seats are just so superb these days that has heavily cannibalized the need for F. But that's another topic. Just sharing my sentiments. I've joined the mileage party now for the record. I still buy a lot of cash tickets, but when possible I do burn American, Alaska and credit card points....I just have a little bit of regret for not doing so earlier, and feeling like I was the idiot paying for someone else's ticket. At least in my case, I don't feel good about effectively subsidizing others' tickets just because I didn't know better. I understand price discrimination but I didn't think such a crazy difference would be possible.

Originally Posted by QRC3288 (Post 27618844)

Ha yea, I hear you, but I just can't escape the fact that many people do indeed pay full rack rate and they're essentially getting a product that's being catered for a much lower margin F passenger. I don't think it makes sense to say a 15k passenger should get an F product cut down to what a 1k pax is paying. Nowhere else on the plane does such a massive disparity exist between pricing.

It's becoming somewhat common to differentiate ticket buckets in the back - this started in Y, has spread to J, and I don't see why it wouldn't work in F. With such vastly different price points I think it makes sense. It is just good business! Especially if CX doesn't take anything away, but instead enhances services for certain tickets only. I don't think AA award redeemers or Alaska people (or even AONE guys) will throw a fit if CX adds some "above and beyond" services that are only available to full F fare tickets. Or maybe they say all cash tickets. Or, in my pipe dream, cash tickets and MPC/Asia Miles. But whatever, the point is some differentiation and acknowledgement that the cash and value to CX is vastly different on the ticket profile in F class.

I should admit, ever since finding out about these cheap award tickets I've joined the party too and used them a few times myself. So I'm guilty also. If I wanted F, I used to either redeem Asia Miles from J or pay cash F last minute....now, 2/3 times I've realized you can find an Alaska ticket in F which you can effectively buy for $1400-$2000. The result for me has been I stopped buying last minute cash F tickets. That's why when I frequently hear the argument here that "this isn't hurting CX, it's all upside for CX to give Alaska / American / etc. this last minute inventory", it's a little laughable to me - at least in my experience, CX is losing a good chunk of change because once you find out you can buy something for 1/8 the price you were paying before....why not? I can't imagine I'm the only one. And since the service is identical between the two. It has always bugged me that you get stuck with a "bad" F seat when you pay cash 48 hours before departure. Overall I really just felt like I was getting gouged once I discovered you could effectively buy a cheapo seat in F and get the identical situation I got before. So now, if I land in 2D, at least I don't feel bad because I booked through Alaska. Whereas before I might've paid 8k USD for that one-way and still had the same seat and everything else. My point isn't to say a seat selection is worth 7k USD, but it's that when there is ZERO differentiation between the services of the two, you really do feel like you're a moron for having spent 7 years getting gamed. I'm not the only person who feels this way - although some of my peers and colleagues aren't quite as CX obsessed as me, all express similar sentiments to the vibe I'm saying here. And many of them buy full J and F tickets, even for personal holidays and whatnot, and we've all jumped in the camp of "spread the love" to other carriers lately. These are kinda directly linked. At some point CX reaps what it sows. If CX wants to offer a 30k round-trip F passenger the identical product its offering with extremely high frequency and availability to Alaska, AA, BA and whoever else, then it should expect to see those customers slowly migrate elsewhere except on absolutely essential nonstops. And likewise, the cabin gets filled with more and more lower margin F customers, and eventually the services / amenities are tailored down to the lower margin profile. This is just the inevitable evolution I think (and a reason why I think F will be further downsized). The only actual tangible difference between a full cash F ticket and Alaska is I don't accrue mileage on the Alaska tickets. Aka, virtually nothing. And I do love elite status (aka, an addiction!) but I fly enough that I can easily do 5-6 Alaska segments on CX per year and not have any risk of missing out on the 1,800 threshold .

Anyway, I really think something should be given to the more valuable pax. I think it will directly benefit the bottom line. I don't think the redeemers are going anywhere, meanwhile CX could perhaps snag some traffic from its regional competitors if it stepped up the game for full fare pax.

Originally Posted by wyskevin (Post 27624296)

I agree with you that CX release too many F reward seats to partners.
Maybe CX sould learn from LX that only their own elite members(HON& Senator, similar as MPC DM&GO) could redeem F.

Btw, not only AS and AA, CA also provides fairly low mileages to redeem CX F from HKG to Europe. There must be something wrong when AS and CA could provide better(lower) mileages requestment than Asia Mile does, on route US-Asia, or HKG-Europe.

Originally Posted by PaulInTheSky (Post 27641979)

CX did release quite a few F seats, and CX also have quite a lot of 77Ws equipped with Fs. My response was CX chose the lesser evil of the two, because they chose to release the seats to award takers who at least tried to figure out a way to redeem/pay for the miles instead of letting employees/staff stand by for it.

Originally Posted by windchaser777 (Post 27642175)

I would hazard a guess that staff paying ID90 for F are actually putting more into the CX coffers than redeemers. And they don't cost CX food and time in the F lounges.

There are also restrictions on which staff are able to pay for ID90 tickets in F and the last time I heard, were limited in the number of F tickets they could get each year.

Don't worry, they're not poaching your precious F award seats.