Noticed that the CX online booking engine has finally moved ahead to catch up to others online booking. Now when booking a flight, a matrix comes up showing the lowest fare for a outbound and inbound combination. Similar to the VS engine.

However, I found that it is still buggy. When looking at a fare to the UK, it gave me a lowest fare of $5,900 which is a valid fare for that date combination. When I proceeded, it only showed fares of $9,000+. If I went back, then the fare had changed for that day to the higher fare. So looks like the matrix is not checking seat availability correctly.

Also noticed that CX has now given names to its fare subclasses: Economy Super Saver / Save / Special / Core / Standard / Flex. And they are noting that advance seat reservation is available to all Y pax except for the cheapest fares.

https://www.cathaypacific.com/cpa/en...king/faretypes

My TA was able to get seats for most fares even in the past. However, many seats were blocked. I had to call MPC to release my preferred seat.

Yes. Even CX Tokyo Reservation office can not unblock my preferred seat.
In that case, I have to call MPC.