When will my flight be cancelled?? (/ Why can't I refund without a fee?)
 

I have a flight to New Zealand booked through HKG on December 5th. Needless to say, I am 99% certain this trip won't be able to happen, but Cathay still hasn't cancelled the flight.

Does anyone have data on how far in advance Cathay is cancelling flights, or whether they might waive the fee? I'm hoping to get a refund and use the miles for a trip to Japan next June. (Which still may not happen but is much more likely!)

I’ve been scratching my head as to why CX hasn’t extended the free rebooking window beyond October 30 for tickets issued prior to March 23. No idea what they are waiting on when other airlines are seeing the light and relaxing change fees well into 2021. I’m booked for January and I don’t know anyone who reasonably believes a vaccine is going to be available prior to January. And even then it appears it may be a two shot vaccine separated by nearly a month. Once a vaccine becomes available I suspect airlines (and countries) might require proof of vaccination at check-in for international flights.

Why would CX announce cancellation early so people can ask for refund? It drains cash out of CX.

Because the nations some have tickets too have made it abundantly clear they will not be open or not open to citizens other than their own.
Cathay is knowingly being fraudulent.

It's a bit unfair on CX as they have no way of really knowing if the OP isn't a New Zealand citizen and therefore would be able to take the flight. Cathay have also been, in my experience, very good about providing cash refunds in a prompt manner when they do cancel their flights. In this case perhaps they will run one flight a week to NZ that you could get on, or perhaps none, impossible for us to predict.

Looking ahead you would imagine the flexibility waiver will come out 3-4 weeks before the flight allowing cancellations or refunds for Cathay credits (if the flight is still running). As for the flight cancellations, I've not noticed a real pattern to them, sometimes it is 4 to 8 weeks out, sometimes it is 2 weeks before, as such it will just be a waiting game for the OP - they do not cancel the flights on the day or anything cruel like that. Be confident that Cathay will be well behaved and will refund your money/miles, or let you change the flight to a later date in 2021. I appreciate that there is an opportunity cost here of course for the other booking, but probably not much you can do but wait.

:confused: Wauw.
In line with the practice of other airlines, CX doesn't cancel flights until it is absolutely necessary and shortly before the flight. There are many (good) reasons for this as stated above - although inconvenient to some. For flights in December you may very well assume that you will not be able to travel, but actually you don't know. You need to wait it out until CX cancels the flight.

There is no need to book 2021 travels to Japan now.

Not CX’s problem if country imposes immigration criteria that you can’t meet. Take a CX Voucher for future travel.

In this case I should have been clear that I have an Asia Miles ticket. They just updated the policy to allow cancellations through December, but I had opportunistically booked in April and they still have 23 March as the cutoff. I am a bit peeved that they didn't extend the "you should have known better date", but that's obviously their choice.

I acknowledge that this isn't the end of the world ($240 in fees), and anyway the flight I wanted to book in June is no longer available with miles so there's not much of a rush. It was worth the price to lock in business class tickets to NZ :).