percysmith

TheSYDTraveller

I've found that HKG-Aus routes have been trimmed down a lot. Even with QF/AS/JL 350~ days, I'm getting some Y and W but limited on the J front.

Cambo

Checking AM redeem, it gives a higher chance of Y availability for HKG - BKK.

Not offering awards for HKG - SFO looks a commercial decision to me, given these flights might fill up already, without awards granting.
Awards promotions for flights which are already full does look a waste of effort, money to me and, when an award is granted, the lost possibility to earn hard cash.

The HKG - BKK might be empty due to previous garbled tickets/award selling, as was complained about earlier.
Or maybe intentional, to promote the awards burning for leisure travel.

The fact I "try" to explain what happens, does not imply, I don't think, CX might be doing stupid things, though that might be a learning process, just like with the HKG lounge transitions. It took a month+ time, though the number of complains reduced recently.

Cambo

There are more LH routes with very limited Standard Award availability.

Gongzuokuang

Maybe that is the true underlying revamp of the program.

Drastically reduce -- almost eliminate -- J&F redemptions for anyone who is not elite. Then increase availability in Y and call that a "20% increase".

Save open seats in J for oversold op-up.

abielp

Hi. How much miles do i need to ticket for MNL-NRT-KIX r/t? CX calculator says 30k for Y and 60k for J. Is that correct?

Dave510

It's odd. At least when I redeem with BA and Alaska, the awards are not that difficult to come by. Yesterday I made a redemption for F seats JFK-HKG-HND, then HKG-JFK in late Feb and Mid March using Alaska. And a few other J seats ICN-HKG and various Asian cities. ICN-HKG was a route I was paying attention to, where last month there were no availability at all after late Jan. But this week I see they've released availability all the way into late March (I haven't look further). Seems like there are still IT issues they're slowly fixing.

percysmith

The 團結團圓 Happy Surprise commercial (sisters' Vancouver) drew some ire:

Soong Kwan-hung It’s impossible to claim the tickets even you do it three months in advance (and even you choose the option to use extra miles to increase the priority).
However the ticket is actually available when you check in the airline’s web site.

Asia Miles 亞洲萬里通 Hi Kwan-hung. Redemption seat availability between popular destinations during travel peak season is very tight, and this is to let you know that paid ticket and redemption ticket are operate in two separate system.
Therefore, if a flight is forecasted to be full, fewer award seats will be allocated. Redemption seats are often secured well in advance of a flight's scheduled travel date but further award seats could be released closer to departure when other passengers firm up travel plans and change bookings.
We are constantly working closely with our airline partners as to offer more redemption choices for our members to satisfy our members’ demand for redemption tickets. Thanks for your understanding. -Dale

Asia Miles 亞洲萬里通 Hi Sherman. Asia Miles is increasing the number of seats available to redeem on Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon by 20% or more. The distribution and availability of seats depends on a number of factors, including our members’ behaviour, seasonality, market demand and the airlines’ capacity.
We do understand the availability of award seats is very important to our members. Just like the previous redemption system, the availability of award seats are still depends on the time of year, predicted passenger load, routing and even time of day. There is no fixed number of award seats allocated to any particular flight. If a flight is forecasted to be full, fewer award seats will be allocated. Thanks for your understanding. -Thea

Michael Hui: Michael Hui As a Diamond member for many years, I accumulated many asia miles. However, with the new redemption rules, to redeem a ticket is another mission impossible (even for a diamond member). If you want to redeem any route from HK to Japan (any cities) with 20000miles, the chance is less than 5% and it has to be redeemed 11 months ahead. So, the only choice is to use 30000-50000 for redeeming a Economy ticket between HK to Japan cities. So, it's not what they advertise 20000 miles. Or they might just offer extremely limited seat as an illusion.

Anita Cheng: Anita Cheng Don't expect to redeem air ticket with mileage! We are unable to redeem our air tickets to Japan for June 2019!

David Yin: do take this ad off! nothing real and dramatically fake

Cambo

Not sure what/who sisters' Vancouver are, though assuming this refers to the ad you quoted, it seems the comments signal, the award availability is less then you assumed earlier.

It really looks to me, CX tries to change the redeem model from a kind of discount ticket (ie 1 in 10 tickets becomes free, because always availability) to a "fill the empty seats on less desirable routes/flights". Which -though not really regular flyer friendly- might be commercially better for CX then before. Of course, during transition, a lot of people (regular redeemers), do complain, though once used to a redeem model more in line with other award models, people just shrug and life continues.

Given the recently posted empty airplane pictures, the implementation of the new CX redeem model shows some shortcomings ......

sxc

percysmith

Yes the 團結團圓 Happy Surprise "inspired by a member's true story" commercial

Cambo

Looks to me, CX kept delaying the required changes far to long, spoiling its regular customer with benefits no other airline does.

When browsing FT, I never came across a praised award program (apart from AS, though that may end soon to), so AM is probably not that bad, how bad it actually is, has to be determined in the upcoming year, once the transition errors have been flattened out.

Given the running HK Chinazation, western working methods/habits will disappear in HK (if not already) and replaced by the organizational chaos and lack of "accepting responsibility", you see in many Asian countries. The latter often leading to dangerous situations.

CX' regular customers aren't the only ones outing their complains publicly, the CX flying crews do live on outing their complains on public forums at a daily basis.

Important is to realize, things need to change at CX, otherwise the airline goes broke within a couple of years. The good old times no longer exist

All changes hurt, bla, bla, bla.

percysmith

Not convinced this is a systems issue, at least when partner redemptions (BA/QF/AA/AS) are excluded.
I'm still finding what I want with PE Aus-HK, at inflated award levels.
And getting some of them cleared from waitlists (one-way, and being told to redeem it in 10 days or else it'd be released with no release of the other way)
This is deliberate.

That has not happened pre-22/6. Go try redeeming CX580 on start of Christmas holidays, even at Priority 2. Or Okinawa or Phuket generally when it's warm.

That was already the idea pre-22/6 but almost all flights seem "desirable" post 22/6.

My best theory is either a) AM is engaging in a prolonged price-discovery process or b) AM plans to fly planes empty and see if they improve their economics that way.
Since I don't see evidence of it being (a) I will treat it as (b).
And my corresponding response is to:- buy less miles and leave more money to fly on other airlines.

For next year CNY our tix is o/w CX redemption, and return on paid VN.

Cambo

Looks to me, you have the same message as I try to bring

percysmith

Previously, the economic theory underpinning making seats available via AM is:

a) HKG is a slot-restricted airport, so CX is in a position to practice price differentiation

b) AM and partner programs is a method to practice price differentiation without cannibalising high-fare paying customers (demand leakage https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...l#post25913898) (in addition to differentiated availbaility/fare conditions and indirect fares as discussed in the ex-EU thread)

c) AM encourages people to prepay for travel that they might not necessarily buy in a straight revenue transaction


I'm not sure what happened to (a) and (b) - is CX giving up the ghost? Flying planes empty (esp in non-peak) may improve yields - yields do not take utilisation into acount Metric:Yield per Revenue Passenger Mile - but utilisation must fall. I am very interested to see CX's utilisation at 2018 year-end, to see the differentiation of half a year of new revenue strategy.

I think (c) is taking a Chinese cleaver to a golden goose - the KOLs/thought leaders aren't going to be able to misinform the AM membership that long, and banks are going to find their cash rebate cards (2% Citi Cash Back on dining/1.5% SCB Simply Cash on spending/1.5% ICBC Horoscope on everything except AAVS) going to be more attractive than AM.