mjz

Thank you. I believe we'll book a room at the Regal and opt for a comfortable nights sleep, and then we can hit the ground running in Bali.

LH4116

Thanks for the help! So 3A seems like the best choice then, and I suppose I can live without the Caviar. All in all it seems like a decent experience, though I am a little worried that CX will set my bar pretty high for future flights in F on other carriers

Love your reports btw!

jona970318

I'm not 100% sure but I would strongly encourage you to check with CX as they might be able to provide accommodation at their expense

mjz

Thank you for the response. CX would owe me nothing in regards to accommodations in this scenario. I chose this itinerary. I only respond back as I don't want inexperienced travelers thinking they are owed accommodations by an airline when having an overnight layover.

CrazyJ82

Some carriers do offer this, at least for revenue tickets in premium cabins. But I'm pretty sure CX is not one of them. Unfortunately I can't remember the acronym for this to search, but it's been discussed here before.

jona970318

STPC

QuesoMadness

Hi all

I'm a bit of a newbie in terms of air travel and have always just booked my tickets online. I've never used any sort of travel agent before.

Can anyone give me a sense of how much of a discount I can get booking a ticket via a travel agent vs. CX.com? For an example flight, RT ORD-HKG in basic Y, flying on Mondays around the Lunar New Year. CX.com's list price is $1219 at the moment.

Also, if the answer to this question greatly depends on the quality of the travel agent, any recommendations on how to find a good one?

Thanks!

yannix

It greatly depends. Sometimes cx.com is cheaper, sometimes the TA. TA prices should be close enough to prices on sites like vayama.com or kayak.com.

CrazyJ82

Before I moved to HK, I also did all of my travel booking online, mostly directly with the airlines. A few factors have swayed me since I've been here:

-- If your plans aren't firm yet, a TA should be able to hold a booking for you on several different flights, or hold a booking on the flight you think you want without issuing the ticket for a while, so that you have the option of changing for free. (Change fees kick in once the ticket is issued.)
-- TAs sometimes seem to have better access to inventory than CX will offer on its own website. I've noticed this most for a HK point-of-sale.
-- For changes, the TA can be easier to deal with than CX customer service. (Although you want a TA who will be reachable most of the time.)
-- Finally, TAs can do a lot of things CX's website can't do easily, such as mixed-class bookings (economy out, premium economy back) etc.

I would recommend some price comparison. Ask a couple TAs to price out your itinerary and see how close they come to what you see on the CX site. Although that fare doesn't sound so outrageous to me for that time of year, since Chinese New Year is such a heavy travel period. Do you want a fare that will earn miles, or are you looking for heavily discounted non-mileage-earning?

yuchung5

I have some questions regarding AM award ticket.
1) If I want to book a TPE-HKG-ORD round trip, how do I do this online? How do I calculate the mileage needed?
2) If I want to book TPE-NRT-ORD on JL metal, I can only call AM to do it?

Thank you

CrazyJ82

You can book CX/KA/BA/QF flights online. Log into your MPO account on the CX website and then on the left-hand side of the home page in the flight-booking window, there's an option to redeem flights. That guides you through the booking process. For JL you would need to call.

Regarding mileage required, consult the AM award chart. You'd be zone E on this itinerary (sum of TPE-HKG and HKG-ORD or TPE-NRT and NRT-ORD).

CanucksHKG

Book it through CX.com but if you want to know just how much AM you need...you can just use the Flight Award Finder on the home page:
https://www.asiamiles.com/am/en/homepage

You get to choose:
- Ticket/Upgrade
- Class
- To
- From
- Airline
- Add sector if require

And it will automatically calculate how many AM you need.

Yes, or submit your request by completing the Airline Award Request Form online. (It's hard to link, you might need to log in first)

Guy Betsy

CX will not be providing any STPC if they can help it. Even for a DM who needed to fly from WNZ to ORD via HKG. CX was recommending him to fly same day even if its a circulare route via SFO and LAX ! So any itinerary as OP suggested, CX will not give the STPC since he chose the route and there are 'alternatives'. They also tend not to give to award holders.

bluepanda

I'm not a frequent flyer, but have some miles to transfer from credit cards. Need some advice on the following:

1) How reliable is the CX booking engine? I tried to price a SIN-SYD and SIN-BNE J class award on QF. It shows 45K for SIN-SYD, but 70K for SIN-BNE. What gives? I believe BNE is nearer, if any. Do I need to call to book?

2) Can I book open jaw (e.g. SIN-SYD & BNE-SIN) for the price of a return? Or would it price as 2 one-ways? Do I need to call to book this?

3) How to check YQ reasonably reliably for AM redemptions? I do not have miles in AM account, so I can't do dummy booking all the way.

sxc

For question (1) are you referring to miles? I think for 45k miles for SIN-SYD, this is for Y class, not J class.

2) Yes you can book open jaw.

3) For checking taxes, try doing a dummy booking for a revenue ticket on a singapore travel website (eg Zuji). Then look at the taxes in the ticket. Be aware that if you are looking for direct flights from SIN to Australia, the flights will be on QF or BA. If on CX, they will be via HKG.