kaka

This would make service recovery a-card worth less than toilet rolls if it rolls out-unless an acard would trump all these bids at 48 hours out.

wandering_fred

I rather prefer the UL system where the successful bid upgrades go in to the lowest biz class, thus permitting better earn in the FF programs.

My chances of bidding? Would be improved if success with discounted levels of Asia Miles or the ability to use miles with V or L class date. Cash for overnight flights from Y to PEY - maybe. But then I suppose I would at least be buying V class in the first place, so better placed than those in the "cheap seats".

When is MPC going to require a minimum mileage on CX/KA for qualification?

Happy wandering

Fred

percysmith

I guess the new game will be ditch miles (even $0.06/AM is overvalued https://forum.hongkongcard.com/forum...w/22044?page=1 #5 ), ditch status and work out what are fare+bid sweet spots.

HarbourGent

Op ups are the only substantive benefit keeping me in MPC. Without them I'd already have jumped ship to a different One World programme for all my travel (which I have been crediting less to them since the changes) and also be booking less long haul flights on Cathay.

If this does indeed lead to far less regular op ups then it's another substantial downgrade of MPC. To Percy's point, the benefit of staying can be more easily obtained outside MPC.

kaka

jumped long ago. And to some ports cx flights arent necessary anyways

d00t

Let's hope the CX data geeks and Marco Polo were leading the initiative. If commercial or revenue management were the driving factors - I'm inclined to believe Marco Polo will bleed more mid-tier FF savvy pax.

The two metrics I would be carefully watching to gauge the success are new/unidentified pax booking ratio to business class fares dropping as an overall number, and existing/known pax (member or not doesn't matter), change in booking habits. Both of these metrics will add another dimension (aka decrease accuracy of existing models) to propensity models for both MPO and AM. This could potentially have a larger effect on the overall business (marketing, partners etc..)

Also, note the skew to leisure destinations on the trial list...

100% agree that any impact to op-ups will destroy the FFP via this channel.

CX staff should also be interested in the trials, as it means increased loads in business class and decreased standby availability in J

24left

Although I'm sure some of you already knew CX went with PlusGrade, just a few bits of info for those who don't know etc.

AC has been using it for a while and there are discussion threads showing bids as compared to LMUs at OLCI.

LH has been using it for almost 2 years, IIRC and their thread is also informative.

It's another way to monetize every possible seat.

And perhaps equally importantly for the airlines is that the process is run by PlusGrade, which means that those airlines with poor IT or IT fails, can sit back while this is managed by a company that has the infrastructure to do it.

http://www.plusgrade.com

.

Ausriver

So we need to now hunt for promotion E & Q fares? and bid to be actual flying in J & PEY!!!

sxc

Op ups were rare on qantas before upgrade bid was around.
I think they can co-exist. Bid upgrades need to be done by 50 hours before departure. I don't think that it is a coincidence that it's just before online check in opens. CX will process those who are waitlisted for miles upgrades (per FAQs), and then process bid upgrades.

If there are still seats remaining then they may open up for last minute miles redemptions and instant upgrades.

sscywong

Side note first... Frankly, my feeling to some of the comments made above are "Can you read the T&C / FAQ first?"...

My view... Even as a DM I tend to agree that it's about time to make people particularly those DYKWIA realize that you get what you pay for... Lower op-up chance actually doesn't affect my flight decision much...

Also the first batch of destinations are all those with very heavy op-up routes and mostly are not those business heavy route like PEK PVG JFK LHR.... So I guess this won't hurt CX's business travelers business much...

I see this as something like "after waiting passengers to upgrade with miles with not much success let's see if they will pay cash to upgrade" thus miles and CP accumulations all are the same as the original booking class... But keeping the original luggage quota is a bit..... mean...

Let's see how the "success" bid will go and will comment further by then...

a-card is much less valuable than that few years ago already... But I agree that unless a-card would be bookable it would be even less useful than before

Won't work as the fare class of the original ticket is also taken into account... I can't imagine Q class would ever win a bid... For E... I'd say highly unlikely as well but if Y is so seriously oversold and the entire PEY need to be op-up before... Yes E might still get a chance (since CX plans to op-up them anyway)

I guess a value will be assigned to every fare sub-class and the value will be added to the bid price placed to determine upgrade successful-ness

I can't guess if membership tier will simply be a tie break determining factor or it will give a certain degree of multiplying factor to the value input... If it's the latter I'd say it's a fair replacement of op-up chance as it is essentially giving high tier members a discount to get Enhanced (yes I still like this name more)

Also I'd be interest to see if any Enhanced seat would get an op-up... I guess it would happen but rare

Let's see how it works out this time...

sscywong

My 2 cent is the process now would be:

Miles redemption till T - 7 days
-> Upgrade bid till T - 50 hours
-> 2 hours processing before T - 48 hours OLCI opens
-> Instant upgrade by miles / a-card upgrade opens, op-up assessment as usual

percysmith

I wonder how the new Enhance will address the fare cannibalisation concerns that the 2014 Enhance had http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/catha...l#post24169956 ? Otherwise it may just fail again.

LoveHateRelationship

I'm going to ICN in August so I decided to see what the minimum bids were. 200CAD per person for PY and 750CAD for J. Not sure if it's a 1 class upgrade or just whatever is available. I'm being offered PY for ex-HKG and J for ex-ICN.

chitink

In August $1000 each way minimum bid for J, I'm currently in PE.

Ausriver

That seems quite expansive.... since the bid for upgrade came with more restrictions and less luggage, I would say it should cost less than mileage upgrade