percysmith

QRC3288

I imagine we'll still see some tinkering.

​​​​​​I get the concern about Asia Miles availability.

But, while no doubt there are going to be people pissed, I don't see why restricting (in some cases, obviously arbitrage situation) partner award tickets is a long term concern to CX? If this councides with Asia Miles redemption prices which are more competitive, long term it could serve CX well. One of the ovbious "problems" with Asia Miles is that CX partners can redeem on CX far cheaper (Alaska long haul J and F, Avios short haul, etc), and for a long time had access to nearly if not equal inventory. In some cases it actually was preferential to NOT be Asia Miles / MPC (old AA partner F and J redemption, coupled with AA EXP status), but rather be the competitor's highest elite to burn partner tickets on CX metal. As​​​​​As the brand owners (CX), this is not an ideal situation! You own the desirable asset yet your "friend" aka frenemy in OneWorld is eating your lunch.

today, points are majority earned by credit cards. Plain and simple.

It is by all means in CX's interest to encourage those marginal (and overwhelming majority) flexible credit card points to turn into Asia Miles - not Avios, not Advantage, not Alaska, etc. - for burning on CX metal. The customer is a total merceny these days, because he/she has access to every FF point currency out there thanks to flexible credit card points. Ergo, the "value" Avios pitches (I've heard the pitch) is tenuous at best. Because scores of Avios and other point currencies are not actually earned natively but rather are transferred opportunistically. Even the self branded credit cards are laughable (some actually laughed at the Avios folks pitching us) because the idea that the BA card, or AA card, or CX credit card etc is a native and captive customer is becoming more and more of nonsense. Because you'll have affluent customers owning 6 airline credit cards, which ends up being the same as flexible credit card points.

This is all a long way of saying customers are highly rational and right now have near total flexibility with points. It is not a smart proposition in this day and age for someone like CX, or any other carrier, to farm out their mileage program to partners. Much better to capture it all in house. With a well run airline owning its own loyalty program (like CX and others), there may be a role for partners, but it certainly isn't an outsized role, and it certainly isn't to allow the partner to arbitrage at the expense of your own currency's value. You want to capture the partner currency only when it is totally captive and the customer is "stuck" into earning those points. Flexible credit card currencies have totally upended the market and I see this as a natural, albeit highly delayed response by CX to restrict partners.

marcommm

Yes, it is going to benefit CX. SQ has been doing pretty well. I am not saying SQ is absolutely right in doing so but I don't see how this has harmed SQ so far. And I hope this motivates CX to improve the quality of premium classes.

For longhaul flights, other ffp's flyer can still redeem AA BA QF and other OW flights into Hong Kong. And if a person being a member of BA AA is unhappy to fly in BA AA whatever, it is not really CX's fault. However, when somebody wants to spend a few days in Hong Kong and continue to Taiwan/South east Asia, then there is very limited OW choice other than CX. Of course, they can take other airlines or LCC, but as a member of an alliance, this is not ideal.

For restricting availability to non-alliance partners, well why not?

lewisyu

Some premium class award spaces (ex: HKG-TPE in Nov) started reappearing in BAEC.

BA Humbug

and in spades....first time seeing 8 F?

https://imgur.com/kxaJVnW

sxc

QRC3288

lol. No doubt this means they're doubling up award bookers in those 6 F seats now . "Our seats are wider than industry standard, so you'll be seated with a partner..."

Now THAT would be a solution

percysmith

percysmith

My pet peeve is when you select a date where only is available, it will still Premium Economy/Business Choice/Tailored. Click into it though, and it'll bounce you back to Economy. Sick joke "You want it? You can't have it :-P"

jamienbaker

BA/QF now showing close-in awards. AA res able to see. USA-HKG in F, HKGSIN in J/F were my test examples.

runningonfumes

but i see no J space new york to hkg way out. i see more Y+ than i normally did. looks like getting the J space well in advance might have gone the way of the do do bird using partners.

focusonskills

Yes, there's definitely more Y+ released to partner. However, I see Y and F seats to LHR (that were previously available pre-22/6) disappeared on BA.com for those days I planned to travel next year. Hope they will reappear later.

SLGO

Iamhappy

Have to say the system was acting strangely.
Was able to, before the changes took place on 22/6, redeem MEL-HKG-ICN-HKG-MEL, whilst MEL-HKG-MEL weren't available on the exact same dates.

potm