I have been dabbling with www.cathapacific.com for 6 months now: either I can't book my destination or I find much cheaper tickets on other online booking sites. I wonder if anyone is actually using the online booking services, and why?

I don't see the point of using the CX website to make a booking, unless you are going for the first time bonus of 5000 miles, which is still very small compared to many other airlines. Here are several reasons:

1) What a price! The prices are not even close to what I get from the travel agents or consolidators.

2) Terrible search engine that does not perform its job. After 4 tries, this is what I got. "There has been an error that has prevented us from fulfilling your request." Even if anyone DO want to make a reservation, how can you do so with the system that does not get you anywhere?

3) Not only is it slow, it's user-unfriendly. For example, when you try to process a roundtrip that does NOT originate in HK, the computer rans into few problems. They can't even process my YVR-SYD-YVR request to return me a quote! Even using "multiple destination" function, the computer runs into error.

4) Lack of incentives. Why bother paying extra $$$ for little or no bonus? Well, unless they start offering complementary one-way upgrades to the ticket purchased over the website! haha.

I guess the business travellers who pay full fares MIGHT utilize their webpage. BUT, for leisure traveller like myself, I don't see the point to search for a fare on the web-site which do not even let me choose the sub-classes I want to book in.

I recall a survey a while ago, when they asked what is the first thing I look for in the online-booking. My first response is "good price". So, if CX want to alure some customers, they might need to work on it.

i use online booking - most times, the fares are higher than what my travel agent can get. other times, my travel agent and some others tell me that a flight is fully booked but i manage to book tickets on the website, albeit at a slightly less restrictive booking class and therefore higher price.

sometimes, the fares on the website are very competitive and cost the same or less for mileage accruable tickets (M/S class) as the non-mileage accruable tickets my travel agent usually quotes low low prices for (Q/V class)

umm...personally i found the fares on the site to be pretty competitive...in fact as far as i know those are the recommended selling prices for the agents to passengers...sometimes smaller agents (at least in HKG) might decide to earn a smaller profit and sell at below this price...but since i usually buy from our corporate travel agent (even for leisure), because of convenience...and they usually do not compete too much on price, so i found the fares on cx.com actually to be pretty competitive...

i usually don't want to go to other agents, because sometimes i found it not too worthwhile to call say 4-5 agents just to get a quote which is maybe only hk$100 or so cheaper...and sometimes may even need me to go there to pick up the ticket, to pay extra 2-3% to use credit card, etc...while doing it online i usually get the ticket courier'ed to me latest by the next day, if i decide to get a physical ticket and not e-ticket...

btw, i am taking about the situation in HKG...in other countries there might be more consolidators and thus much lower fares, but i guess the fares aren't really that different for ex-HKG tickets, from different agents vs. from cx.com ??

I think it really depends upon location. I've never bought in HK, so have no idea. I do know that you'd have to be insane to buy online from Vancouver or Bangkok. Even IF you had to get a seat, you could (if in MPC) buy a cheap ticket, then call CX and change dates (getting either priority waitlist or guaranteed seat, depending on your level). Can't see a reason to buy online, unless it's for business and cost is no object....

On the other hand, from a place like Hanoi, there are no consolidators, and the CX price online is about as good as you'll get...The differences make me laugh. For example (this is coach): a ticket Hanoi-Tokyo is $1,000, while a ticket purchased in BKK (BKK-YVR) is $600!?? Sometimes I have trouble making sense of the air travel business....

I don't see how the seats are easier to obtain from the website. If you asked your agent to make a reservation for Y/B classes, wouldn't it be just as easy, because they come from the same inventory pool?

In terms of the price, I DO agree some simple roundtrip fares quoted are competitive. For example, I just checked the roundtrip of HKG-YVR flight departing on Dec 14th, and the price I got was HK$9080 for restricted ticket. This is in fact very close (if not lower) to the prices I get from my agent when I book in B class travel. (I don't remember exact figures, sorry!)

But the competitive pricing is hard to obtain from the website if you want to fly on routes where only the travel agents have the special offer agreement with the CX. For example, below is what I go from website for the low season roundtrip travel from Canada to Australia:

Economy Restricted Class 5,266.02 CAD

I flew on the same route for as little as CAD$1750 (including applicable taxes in Vancouver).

Finally, regarding the agents. I also use a big agents for all my leisure travel, and the prices I get might not be as cheap as those smaller agents which I don't trust (those ones you see on local newspaper advertisement). I also do not find it worthwhile to make several phone calls to ask for the fine prints for the benefit of few houndreds of dollars. I continue to be loyal to my agent because they provide excellent service to repeated customer like myself, and I find this to be my major incentive to purhcase tickets from the agents.

By the way, I'm not worried about the security issues, because I have done numerous internet transaction in the past.

It basically has to do with "consolidator" tickets. CX cannot offer them on line on markets other than from HKG and SIN.

From HKG, the fares are comparable to what agencts in HKG can offer. But it's only in economy.

From SIN, as the government there has legalised consolidator fares, all airlines can sell freely whatever fares they choose on their websites - most of it better than what the travel agents can offer. CX has great fares with hardly any restrictions - which can be booked and ticketed up to 3 hours prior departure.

I've booked it once and will do so again.

A well known consolidator (Chinese travel agent) in Vancouver can even offer First Class fares on CX for about 20% cheaper then bought directly from CX (whether it be website, or reservations center) in addition to the discounted economy class fares they offer. [They even sell to the smaller Chinese travel agents who will put on a mark-up]

The only restriction is that you must travel on the afternoon flights (CX838/839), which is a good deal for food lovers as these flights have better meal service compared to the evening flight.

But then I guess this is happening because the loads on the YVR-HKG-YVR flights in F aren't really that great.

Most Chinese people in Vancouver I know won't even think about buying their ticket direct from CX or online. Their habit is to just go shopping at Chinatown or one of the Asian shopping malls in Richmond and then walk into one of the travel agencies and buy the ticket. (at consolidator fares)

From my biased point of view, the CathayPacific.com online booking is only useful for price insensitive business travellers who don't have time to wait for a ticket to be issued and insist on it being "E-tickted" right away so they can use it "tonight". Also, some Caucasian people in North America or British expats in Hong Kong who are too intimidated to walk into a travel agency in Chinatown might even use it and be paying higher fares for their ticket to HKG compared to their Chinese counterparts. (Sorry for being too biased, but these are just examples)


[This message has been edited by daniellam (edited 10-04-2001).]

From my biased point of view, I think the analysis of Chinese people in Vancouver walking into the Chinese agents to buy a ticket is somewhat true. Partly due to the linguistic problem (for some,... i guess.) or simply because they do not believe buying direct from the airline will be cheap. (at least from my experience)

20% discount on F-class ticket is awesome! But I know a friend, whose family (members of 5) bought full-fare business class tickets YVR-HKG and got all upgraded to First class. (the promotion). That means nearly 1/3 of the cabin was his family members. So, as long as this promotion last, the question is whether you want to fly both trips on First class for extra $$$ (even with 20% off), or you will be satisfied with 1 first class segments, with much lower full-fare business class fare. But of course, this will not be an issue for those who are extremely well off...

The CX website is great when CX offers some discounted website sale fares not generally available.

If you are looking for special discounts, then go ahead and use travel agents.

FYI fares on CX via YVR from USA are generally 20% less than from YVR-HKG itself or from US gateways.

here in SIN, most travel agents have little or no idea what booking class tickets are in, just that it's economy and (usually) you need 2 or more persons in the same booking to get the discounted price.

so when they say that a particular flight is full, they mean that the G/V/whatever class of tickets they are selling are filled up - it rarely occurs to them to suggest another booking class.

so it's easier to get a seat on a "fully booked" flight from cx.com rather than having to explain what booking class is and getting the travel agent to do it for you.

Are you serious? You must be kidding about that! I was just talking with my friend about buying a Travel Agency license, and I guess I should be proud to know that I have just a slightly more knowledge than those "real" agents then! haha

no kidding... there are ignorant agents out there. i remember once being bussed to BUF from YYZ, BUF-EWR and then bused to JFK for JFK-HKG because the agent:
1. had never heard of mexicana
2. did not bother to check if there was any airline that did YYZ-JFK
3. did not sell mexicana tickets

And then there's the travel agent who thinks ORD is Orlando instead of Chicago !!

just remembered that it wasn't mexicana that flew YYZ-JFK but rather varig.