sceptical that benefits will be 'elevated' - an ascent to FL400 doesn't count as a benefit

Anyone has experienced what happens if a GO travels with a non-status pax on the same PNR? Would the non-status pax has group 2 automatically printed on the boarding pass? If not, I assume the non-status pax can go with the GO on group 2 and let through?

As a holiday traveller, SL is not possible purely on CX Y, even on flex fares. At least 1 trip in business must be taken (e.g. TPE-BKK return in J) in order to hit the required points to qualify. Kinda sad they're devaluing SL

Getting status on CX is already hard compared to other OW airlines. I think what CX need to do is devalue the status/non published benefits of other FFs from other airlines, e.g., Diamond boards with First, Gold & Silver board with Business, OWE gets bumped down and boards with Business, OWS goes with Prem Econ.

That would be against OW rules. Not that they can’t, but very tricky (needs justification) and likely not worth it.

But SL boarding with PEY doesn’t sound that bad. An example is BA bronze also boards in group 3. OWR doesn’t have priority boarding anyways, so it’s still priority boarding, just not as priority. This also solves the Gold being too close to Silver when travelling on CX.

https://www.oneworld.com/travel-benefits
It only says "priority" boarding, anything above econ line is "priority", to me at least. They can leave the well-defined check-in lines as is.

My main point was supposed to be the issue with moving silver to PEY, is that there is a well defined published benefit for CX silvers to board with business. for OW tiers it is not clearly defined, it only says "priority" boarding.

It seems that selected flights on HKIA also have boarding group trials. I saw it on threads with CX 588. This didn’t go well SL members because it deviated from the published benefits.

Again, I think SL boarding with PEY is perfectly fine (it’s still priority boarding tbh), as long as they announce it to the public.

Oh right, it happened for my CX588. As the missus and I were both OWS, we didn’t notice any difference. No issues with her parents (one booking though).

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...56e3a5a88.jpeg

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...7161afe09.jpeg

I wonder if the business class queue (Group 2) is significantly shorter?

The Cathay Membership Terms and Conditions say:

Priority boarding:

1. Silver, Gold and Diamond Members are eligible for priority boarding.

So it's not a deviation from the published benefits as long as they get 'priority boarding'. If they board ahead of economy, then I agree with you that it is still 'priority boarding'.

The CX website states:

• Priority boarding
  Board at your convenience together with your travel companions using the Business class boarding line.

so it’s still a deviation of published benefits. I don’t think the public will go through the detailed terms on conditions, so it’ll be a bit tricky to handle it. Again, I think most SL will be happy if they board ahead of Y, but make sure they’re well informed about the change.

You're right - I missed that. So it looks like the Terms and Conditions may have been updated, but the way they describe it in the website wasn't updated at the same time.

Looks like group boarding will be effective system wide from December 1st per the account summary email I receive today.
Here is the info from CX Website
https://flights.cathaypacific.com/en...NT_SUMMARY_V41

“If you're travelling with others in the same booking, you'll board together. Your group number will be based on either your seat number(s) or the highest eligible Cathay or oneworld membership tier of any passenger in the booking.“

I wonder if they will strictly enforce this rule, unlike current practice where everyone else in the group could “tag along” without being in the same booking.

Looks like the only loser is SL member, can't boarding with Biz anymore.