ermen

yes and no

for some legs (eg like I mentioned PER-HKG J available on AM, but only PER-xHKG-TPE J available on BA/QF)

xiux

yes, Asia Miles has the same problem, like on BA I see availability zrh-hkg-tpe for 2 and can proceed to payment page. on Asia Miles, the same flights will put me on waitlist......

kamchatsky

Ah OK thanks for the clarification.

focusonskills

Have you managed to book both sectors and then call BAEC to drop one of them?

kaka

ermen

not managed to get BAEC to drop 1 sector

pointsifu

Hi, I have a o/w J HKG-SFO award booked pre 6/22 for travel in Sept. Now that the new rules allow one way with stopover, I'm thinking to change the ticket to HKG-SFO (stopover)-LHR on CX and BA. Does anyone know if this is possible?

percysmith

Didn't previous rules allow stopover anyway?

Cancel and reissue with retained segment(s) is possible. US$120/HK$936/12,000 AM

Corp Travel Owner HK

Hi all,

First time poster here. I felt obliged to join the forum so that I can join in this discussion, as I'm getting very frustrated with the new AM booking system, and I'm wondering whether it's CX hardly releasing any AM seats far in advance now, or whether the website is just absolute sh*te and not working at all properly, which wouldn't surprise me given their previous attempts.

I part own a travel agency in Hong Kong booking mainly corporate travel, and I use AM often for myself and my family - always booking months in advance, as far in advance as possible really once my/our plans are confirmed, so I can see everything from a travel agency perspective with the availability for each flight, as well as from my previous personal bookings experiences.

I hate the new system tbh, I'd much rather see the old system with just available or not available for each class of travel, rather than standard/choice/tailored. Faffing around clicking each option to see if there is availability is really starting to get on my nerves. My observations so far are:

* Although it says on the main AM page you can book 360/353 days in advance, this appears to be nonsense for the standard tickets. It seems clear that the green marks against each date signalling a higher chance of seats being available only go as far as 3 months ahead. If I check HKG-MNL for example, it mostly shows green up until 30th Oct, is it a co-incidence that this is 3 months ahead? It's the same for nearly every random route I have checked. The green marks disappear from Nov 1st.

* I am checking 10th April to MNL, yet all flights are apparently full in economy, only premium econ available it says, 40k miles per person. Having previously had no problems regularly booking econ to MNL for 20k miles days/weeks/months in advance, I certainly don't want to pay double now booking 9 months in advance. You're seriously telling me all flights on Wed 10th April HKG-MNL are full in economy already for AM bookings? Absolute nonsense, I'm probably the first person to even search for this date on AM!

* Business class return to MAN should be 130,000 return lowest (standard), so this is up from 120,000 previously. If I check random dates months in advance, Feb/March next year mid-week for example, it shows the days of the week and shows 65,000 against certain dates signalling the one way cost, yet when I click it then it says the only flights available to book would be 170,000 return, and I have to waitlist that also. If I click standard 65,000 miles just to make sure I'm not looking at the wrong info, it then says no flights available. So the info you're looking at is just all over the place and can't be trusted.

* I've checked other random dates months in advance where CX have a lot of flights and it's not peak time, HKG-LHR for example, and again business class showing full all day for weeks. This bears no relation to previous experiences, where with a little bit of playing around within a week either side would find you availability on most flights.

So like others who have commented so far in this thread, we really need some answers soon from AM or CX as to what the hell is going on. It used to be the further in advance you book the more chance of getting seats you have, now it seems to be the opposite?

ermen

I must be really lucky.

Managed to snag a HKG-SIN 2 days ago when Economy Standard opened up.

Today - a few hours before flight... chock packed in Y (CX agent said flight was overbooked)


48% / 46mJ3 C3 D3 I3 Y1 B1 H1 K1 M0 L0 V0 S0 N0 Q0

kaka

what is the reasoning for am releasing awrd seats for LHR when they think they can sell for 40K HKD+
as for cx it, you should have better experience w us. in my experiencec UA has better IT. maybe you should consider them if that is what you value. I've tried them once, and it's not much worse than CX, definately not worth sh!tting with the CX IT system for.

IF you want some certain dates confirmed now and cannot wait, paying cash and earn some miles is a better solution.

BTW, welcome to FT and hope you can share some of your knowledge in TA.

focusonskills

I just booked TPE-HKG-LHR which is not available as HKG-LHR on BAEC. Called BAEC to drop the first segment. Got a very helpful agent who tried 30 minutes but failed to drop the first segment. He said dropping sectors should normally be possible but this one cannot be done. He even called CX and was told the segments are married and cannot be dropped. In the end he cancelled the booking for me.

afmiami

I really don't understand their logic in releasing award space. For example looking this Saturday August 4, HKG-SFO CX872 shows F3A3 on expert flyer, and a search on AsiaMiles shows "flight is fully booked and not available for waitlist" . For Sunday August 5th, also F3A3, wait-listing is possible. Nothing available on BA obviously

pointsifu

Thanks! Well, the previous chart didn't allow ultra long haul with stop over in this case if I remember correctly.
Will the reissued ticket carry a new one year expiration date after paying the change fee?

percysmith

Precisely to stop close-in bargain hunters like you.

(They aren't doing this consistently...)