In the past, the Tsuen Wan call centre contracted to PCCW staff handled MPO/AM calls and the GCC (Guangzhou Call Centre) handled CX revenue reservation calls. I'm not sure how different calls are assigned these days.

I always call the HK number, without exception.

Now they set up a new call centre in Guangzhou and got inexperienced staff who are not familiar with bookings and not aware of account securities. They are unable to handle complicated cases. If you are DM and waited for over 5 mins, simply hang up and call again. There are problems with the queue system.

Well, the saga continues...per my references in above posts re calls to Cathay, one call was to book a one-way First Class redemption ticket for a companion. All was done "successfully", until I noticed yesterday night that the ticket had been issued with the wrong travel date!

Remembering back to normal procedures of issuing redemption tickets, the Agent would always email me the itinerary (to check) and then another email with a payment link.

For this particular booking, the payment link was received first and then the itinerary email was received two minutes later (looking at the time stamps in my Mail app). I did not think to check the itinerary before making the payment (lesson learned). And, just yesterday night, when entering the flights into my calendar did I notice that the flight date on the e-ticket was for the wrong date. (I had wanted to fly on 25th, but the Agent had booked 05th.)

I immediately called Cathay (around 9:30pm HK time), and got through without queuing. I told the Agent the situation, and he immediately first searched for First Class availability for my correct date. Having found availability, he then proceeded to protect this seat first. He then told me about the procedures to verify whether the previous agent did indeed make the booking incorrectly; this would involve listening to voice recording of that conversation.

Around 10pm same night, the Agent called me back to confirm that the other Agent had indeed made the booking for the wrong date. What I had said during that call was correct, but the Agent had booked the wrongly. So, e-ticket re-issued for the correct date.

This incident does lead me to believe that there are some knowledgeable Agents in the system, who are professional in doing their job. However, it now seems like "luck" to find one such Agent!

The Guangzhou call centre is simply awful! They are very green and can fool you around. Tried to call them twice and they could tell you two different things. One even told me CX has no conversation with their code share partners, which was a joke. I recall when I called MPC last year, they claimed they were CX staff instead of PCCW call centre, so I am not sure if CX still has its own desk handing calls. I called yesterday and was picked up by someone likely based in Hong Kong, though not that friendly, he was experienced enough to tell me those unofficial privilege discontinued a decade ago.

Regarding the English call centre, they are even more useless if your call involves pricing a ticket. They just have no clue of what they are doing at all despite they maintain a super helpful, friendly and positive stance. I miss the days when CX had three separate lines for MPC/AM, reservation and ticketing desk, but I know most other airlines are equally bad or worse.

Just to report back - I recently had a call with the membership services' Mandarin line, and the itinerary file I received had a Beijing address, so the Beijing call centre is still there (or was recently brought back).

I've rather given up. I needed to add a middle name to a passenger in my redemption group (a legacy of HK's covid response) even though, like many, I find it impossible to use any upgrade vouchers, certainly from business. It was impossible to make changes online. No sense from the phone number which used to be helpful but seems clueless now. In the end I gave up, cancelled my next Cathay booking and booked my next (usually monthly) London flight on BA, something I've not done before but am glad I did. I saved HK$16,000 and had an arrivals lounge at Heathrow, which Cathay no longer provides. I used to be a big supporter, certainly of the Cathay of the past but it's become quite frustrating dealing with them and having renewed my BA gold card I'm not sure I need a Cathay diamond card as well.

The Whatapp help is useless. Either get no response at all or even worse, they will respond and not read the original message and then send a generic message back in the middle of the night and if you don’t respond right away they will cut the conversation and you have to start again.

I called MPC on the HK number today and got to speak to what sounded like a HK (Maybe Mainland Chinese, but the accent sounded more like Honkie) agent. He was knowledgeable and sounded pretty experienced. Had no issue cancelling my redemption ticket. He also confirmed that while the taxes and fees might take a few weeks to process, the miles should be redeposited within two days. Oh, and I had also no wait either, called around 11:30am HK time. Very refreshing change from some of the other recent calls I have had lately!

Hold times seem to be getting better again. Today at 12 noon HK time, hold times in DM English queue around 10-15 minutes. Still much longer than "normal" but a big improvement from staying on hold for 60+ minutes and still not getting connected to an agent.

Here is another interesting and positive interaction with Cathay: I called 27473333 this afternoon around 2:30pm HK time, selected Cantonese language, and the wait for Diamond was less than 5 min.

Reason for my call was wanting to book one-way CDG-HKG-TPE. While I could book this on the Cathay website as a transit, I could not book it as a stopover (the "loading fare" icon kept showing on the screen, and I could not proceed). I could see the actual fares in the screen "background", but the "loading" error prevented me from proceeding further. I could peek the "Business Light" fare as EUR 2,220.29, but with a CDG-FRA-HKG indirect flight. The "Business Essential" fare was EUR 2,343.89. I was pleasantly surprised when the Agent quoted me a fare of EUR 2,082.89 for the CDG-HKG non-stop flight and then a three-week stopover in HKG before the HKG-TPE flight. That fare difference is quite a significant savings from the Agent's quote vs. what I saw on the Cathay site. The Agent was very helpful, and also confirmed that I would book into "I" class, and that "A" class fare was available at that time to use my Upgrade Certificate. Needless to say, I ticketed immediately, and also just applied the Upgrade Cert to the booking (now waiting for the official confirmation of upgrade within the 72-hour window).

I had to call the Cathay call center over 10+ times the past week as my travel agent is irresponsive, and utterly horrible.

I called from Europe, and was rounted to Poland (2x), India (5x+), Switzerland (1x), and Vietnam (2x). They always picked up my calls within 10-15 mins... The Swiss agents were the most experienced, Polish agents were clueless (they screwed up my reservation change), Vietnamese and Indian agents are typical polite, but not very helpful... Could not get anyone from HK or China.

These issues were mentioned in the recent Cathay annual report which implied that the issues were being addressed at board level and as a matter of urgency. Time will tell.
This is in itself a very unusual to mention this sort of operating issue in an annual report note and I imagine that serious action to remedy the situation is underway....lets hope so. personally I don't have an issue as my entry info ensures that I get qualified attention within a couple but our other family members dont have this privilege and sometimes wait a considerable time only to be met with agents from across the globe most of who dont have a clue.

This one https://www.cathaypacific.com/conten...en.pdf#page=12 ?

I don't see it in Interim Report https://www.cathaypacific.com/conten..._report_en.pdf nor Final Results Announcement https://www.cathaypacific.com/conten..._result_en.pdf (2022 Annual Report not out yet)

Semantics I believe PS re the annual report being interim or the final. The fact is that it in the public domain as is the mentioned note.