OK - I've successfully (for the 3rd time, so less surprising this time) - called Cathay from USA to finish booking my award travel - spare ya the details, but JFK to Europe - with a European layover. (Finnair)

Now I have to get to JFK from my hometown.

a) There were no (award) flights available (on any partner) to "get there from here" so that was never an option;
b) Finnair does not fly from my hometown to, well, anywhere.
c) My plan at the moment is - just get up real early fly to JFK on a cash ticket, fetch and re-check baggage for the evening flight, lots of contingency flights available (and barring that - I could drive it - horrible choice - but I would do it)

Here are my questions:

Cathay only allows one stop on a one-way ticket - is there a way to wrangle a second stop, start this process over, and just book it (Hometown - JFK - Europe1 - Europe2)?
It is a round trip after all - can I do the "round the world" thing here? Would I come out ahead?

Barring that - although AA recently (a few years ago) updated the policy - it does not SEEM as if I could get them to check my bags through - somehow - being two totally separate record locators - is that true?

Any other loophole / better plan / crazy scheme I should have used? Sounds nutty, but I'm happy with the result - I'm just trying to improve. Not always possible to get front of plane awards for two people on short-ish notice - but it all worked out, just hoping
Cathay can breathe air long enough to get to the departure day!

Hope that makes sense - apologies if confusing...Thanks again - all of you have always been full of excellent and professional information.

AA BA and some other OW airlines will not interline bags on separate tickets.
Look at the wiki here for links to the airline ffp threads--> Bag interlining issues and OW policy changes (Combined threads)

You can do your 3-sector ticket (Hometown - JFK - Europe1 - Europe2) as a OneWorld Multicarrier ticket, but it will need to have 2 non-CX airlines, which should be quite easily done (e.g. AA + BA).

https://www.asiamiles.com/en/terms-a...er-awards.html

There's a thread on OneWorld Multicarrier awards:

​​​​​​​https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/cath...ing-ideas.html

Thanks, psych - - so basically, if can manage just two carriers (neither Cx) - then I could use the chart as if I'm going around the world - all the same rules - but in reality - just leaving home - through jfk - through some euro layover - and onto the final destination - and back.

Right?

Since I've already booked the award portion in the "usual" way - I think it's safe to guess that an award seat is available on that leg, at least - I just need to find one on the initial short leg.

Will I be able to re-arrange this without a penalty - or at least, without a HUGE penalty? Looks like the overall mileage cost will be the same, so I have the case I'm NOT spending on a ticket to cover any "penalty) - but the over itinerary would be much easier to manage.

Wow my post was rife with weirdness and typos! Sheesh! It was fine when I posted it...anyway - you get the idea, sorry for that - no explanation - I swear I am not illiterate...

I'm saying - if I have to pay a fee to change the ticket now - it may be worth it, as I have to pay cash for a short flight anyway already. And more convenient to manage the overALL itinerary.

The problem is, they may have to cancel what you have already booked in order to book the OneWorld ticket - which means that you may lose all the flights that you have already confirmed ... so there's a risk.

Hi Psych, yep, understand completely - as there is now zero availability on those times / days.

I'll just leave it as-is, lesson learned - hoping to burn off some more of the Cx miles and will do better to take advantage of all angles. I think I was just intimidated to call - my first experience (2.5 years ago) was really slow going. Once COVID showed up, Cx tried repeatedly to reschedule me - I'm grateful - but each attempt was them calling me - and it was a slow and difficult to understand phone call, each time...always just to either "change flight or cancel reservation?"

So when it came time to call them - again - on purpose - I hesitated. But in the end, I had to call anyway - and it was entirely pleasant, fast, professional and understandable. I know that it's my own fault I don't speak Cantonese - but dog-gone, it was much - much - easier with someone that spoke English almost as good as I do.

Anyway - thanks for all the input, everyone. Great source of information here, I've said many times - continues to be true!

It's easier nowadays to use their WhatsApp service (+852 2747 2747) - which I've used a few times (in English) and the responses are quick and efficient (I don't know if it's because I'm a Diamond Member or if my requests are not too difficult). Sometimes the agent is online at the same time as me and I can do a back-and-forth conversation with them on WhatsApp.

Info below:
https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_HK/contact-us.html

I tried to use that WhatsApp to actually book an award booking (tried 5x today and keep running into a dead-end error "ErrorPrice for your trip has changed. New quote is displayed below. (8015)"), but seem to be just chatting with a chat bot. You got an actual human being?

Yes, it will start by saying "Hi _________, I'm Vera - your virtual assistant...... I am still in a learning process. Please try again by inputting the keywords or shorten questions."

Me: "Speak to an agent"
CX: "Sure, I'm now connecting you to Customer Care."

It then asks me to input my booking reference and also my Marco Polo Club / Asia Miles number.
After entering my membership number, an agent usually replies within 30 minutes.

This works smoothly for me and I haven't had any problems - I've used the WhatsApp mainly for cancelling award tickets and checking on my (free) expiry date extensions.

But again, it may be because I'm a Diamond member and so the wait time is short and the service is better. Just today I tried calling to see how quickly they picked up, and I had zero wait time (at around 11am HK time) - my voice call was instantly answered.

Right - this "ErrorPrice for your trip has changed. New quote is displayed below. (8015)")

After booking my outbound (oneway) via website with nary a catch - the return leg (same partners) refuse to participate, and kept doing the Error Price thing.

That's when I checked this forum - and many of you said - "CALL" - so I did - and that was that! It all worked out - kinda unfortunate about the error - but - my experience on their website is that if everything is
good, then you can do as you please - but - if there's any discrepancy - say, the airline you chose has no flights on that day at all - then the whole website pukes. For instance, choose a flight from Europe to a USA destination - one on the drop down - but one that does not truly have a flight. For instance, Charlotte got rid of some Euro nonstops recently - but Charlotte still appears on the drop down.

In my case the "error - price..." was fortuitous - the fees (in HKD) actually were about half of that posted - but the website was unable to navigate that - so Phone Call it was. I will try whatsapp next time if needed!

Anyway - thanks again.