mathman88

Long time lurker and I have found lots of great info here, hoping for some help. My wife and I are going to try to book an award trip on CX from Asia to US with AA miles. Final destination will be DEN and we will most likely originate in HKT. We have never flown F in CX and are excited about it and want to get the best experience. We have flown a few times in C and have had various experiences. Which flights should we try to get to have the best product?
We are somewhat flexible on the dates leaving the first week of August and could leave from DPS or SIN if it would be worth it. Are all of the F long haul seats the same?
Any help will be appreciated!
Cheers

silver-tls

Search is your friend and a ton of info but I believe if you want to go to Denver you're going to fly into SFO which has 2 flights a day operated by the 747. Seats 1A and 1K are probably the most requested for 2 people traveling together.

Bmoney

If you want to fly to DEN then I would recommend that you fly into LAX. AA has several flights a day from LAX to DEN. If you fly into SFO, then you will need to connect from SFO to LAX and then onto DEN which will make for a long day.

letsflythere

Yes, go for LAX, all 3 daily flights operated by newest 77W (chance of delay or technical problem is less) and those F seats would make you King of the Sky! Just go for it.

Not bad to start from HKT to try CX's fully-owned subsidary Dragonair's J-class, the timing is hazzle-free for travellers, for you dont really have to hurry in the morning. But for this option, you would have to either stay overnight in Hong Kong or Los Angeles for connecting flight. If you are already planning a one or two day short stayover in HK, there is no problem at all. If I were you, I would opt for a short stay in HK before jumping onto CX F longhaul to LAX.

Remember to spare some time to enjoy the F lounge in HKG or if you wish can explore the airport for a bit for it gonna be cool.

Besides HKT, you may also see the possibility of starting your home-bound journey from Penang (PEN) in Northern Malaysia, which is only 4 hour drive away from Phuket. There you most likely to get both legs in F cabin, as CX operates the long-haul 77W to PEN for most of the days.

QRC3288

Just as a minor point, there are absolutely no difference in the seats between 77A (to LAX) and 74A (which flies to SFO). In fact, many of us would probably express a slight preference for the 74A in F class due to larger bathrooms and an overall more private feel (due to the lack of a close galley and FA through traffic). So the age of the plane doesn't have too much to do with the quality of the onboard product for F with CX.

As for connections, there are a number of threads debating SFO/LAX. The poster above is absolutely right in pointing out that LAX is an AA hub, whereas SFO is flooded with UA traffic. instead. If you want an award all the way through on OW, then LAX is probably the way to go (although, depending on your trip dates....ORD service starts in September, that might also be a good candidate for AA connections if your trip is after that).

However, when connecting in the US (both SFO and LAX) I've actually taken to avoiding AA (and other US mainlines) altogether. Recently I've just taken to arriving at those airports and buying a ticket on the spot with Southwest to wherever my final destination is. Incredibly convenient, and they usually have these things called "Business Select" fares available which allow you to cut the queue and board first. I usually travel light, they have high frequencies (including two afternoon nonstops to DEN from SFO) and in my opinion are a far superior airline than any of the US mainline disasters.

mathman88

I have flown a lot on CX in C and Y from TPE to HKT, DPS, MNL, and obviously HKG. I have also flown on Dragonair a few times. Some of the time we were in older C configurations that pale in comparison to the newer product and wanted to make sure we didn't make the same mistake on our only F transpacific journey!!
It looks like we need to connect through SFO or YVR, neither of which are giving us great connections into DEN. Taking too long to plan and looks like we are missing out on traveling through LAX.

Dr. HFH

If you have trouble finding seats to either LAX or SFO, try YYZ. Usually much more availability in F.

ual902

Another tip is to be flexible when flying CX F using AA award, from my exprience seats open up for AA award litterly less then a week or day or 2 before your desired departure, as CX hold the seats for sale and/or just F pax cancel their seats days before your desired departure.. And don't forget to enjoy your private cabana at the wing in HKG.

makin'miles

When are you travelling? Perhaps the new ORD flight would be an option. AA would certainly have seats to DEN from there.

makin'miles

While this is true, I don't believe that this is a particularly safe journey. Best to check out your country's consular travel reports first. If nothing is available from HKT, it might be a better idea to just buy a cheap one-way up to BKK and connect to a CX flight from there.

FlyerBeek

I don't think I'd recommend this - especially since AA now has multiple daily LAX-DEN flights with an F cabin (albeit in a CRJ) that the OP would be able to add to his/her award at no additional cost. Plus, if flying onward using AA the OP would have Flagship (AA F) Lounge access for a same-day connection (much nicer than the Southwest terminal).

-FlyerBeek

Bmoney

Keep in mind if you are flying into lax in F, you are first off the plane and customs shouldn't be that bad. As long as the qf 380 flights havent landed within in an hour of your flight, tbit is pretty quick. I will take lax anyday of the week and twice on Sunday over Mia for customs.

Remember don't sweat things you can't control. Get you a flight into the US that works for you and has few connections. As someone that use to live in Colorado and flew the lax to den flights, save yourself the hassle of another connection if you can avoid it.

mathman88

Thanks for all the great tips. I have been working on finalizing our bookings.
We found that the best availability was to fly out of SIN and airasia and jetstar both have cheap flights there. BKK was a little cheaper but not great availability. We also decided to route through LAX to minimize our travel time stateside. We could get a lot of availability in F to YVR, but then had trouble getting to DEN; they would have to send us to SEA then on to SFO-ORD or LAX with multiple night stays in either YVR or LAX/SFO (not fun). We could get into SFO with more ease, but the connections always required an overnight in SFO and most likely routing through LAX for the shortest connections.
We are looking on leaving on a Sunday afternoon to catch CX734 SIN-HKG and get a true first class seat on the 744 and enjoy the afternoon flight and the lounge in SIN. We got 2 of these confirmed in F.
We will then overnight in HKG as opposed to taking the midnight flight out. We figure this way we won't zonk out the whole flight and be able to enjoy the experience more! Also, we would rather overnight in HKG then LAX.
We have gotten 1 confirmed F on CX884 on Monday and the other confirmed C.
It took me about 5 hours and 12 calls into the Platinum desk to get our current flights! I have been using the KVS tool and it kept telling me it was available on OneWorld and CX, but not the OneWorld/BA. As per the advice in the KVS tool thread, I kept calling and talked to a supervisor. I even called CX to see the availability and CX award office said that the open F seat is bookable by AA. I kept asking the AA desk to try to call CX to release the ticket, but they said this is not possible.
The frustrating part during this process was the seemingly random availability of seats. KVS tool would say 2 F available for all legs (on all but the Oneworld/BA). I call and they finally were able to see 2C on CX734 and 1 F and 1 C on CX884 by the 5th call when searching for 2 seats. I said OK, book 1 seat on CX734 C and the 1 F on 884. As she did this, F popped up for the 734! Great!! At the same time the C seat on 884 dropped off. Now we had 1 F all the way from SIN-HKG but nothing else.
The availability on KVS did not change. I called in about 2 hours later and was able to get the agent to see the C seats on both 734 and 884 and booked that. As she was booking it, the F seat on 734 popped up again as well as bookable.
End result: 2 F on CX734 SIN-HKG on the 744 product and 1F and 1C on CX884 on the 773 product (with a nice connection from LAX-DEN).
KVS availability has still not changed. Oneworld and CX both still see F+ and the Oneworld/BA does not show any availability on CX884.
I have them on hold for 4 more days and hope that the F seat will pop up when I call again after midnight.
Thanks to all the great advice!!

mathman88

Thanks for advice makin'miles. Unfortunately we are flying in early August and the ORD flight starts a month later!

mathman88

FLyerBeek, thanks for the nice tip on the CRJ! I was able to book a nice connection from the CX884 on a CRJ flight in F. Looking forward to it compared to the old regional jet I flew in Jan LAX-DEN. How does the Flagship lounge compare to the Business lounges in HKG?