CX715 - no entertainment on board
 

For 3 hours? I guess I'd go for large amounts of champagne and vino and a flirt with the crew!

I flew AA HKG-DFW whole aircraft without IFE, the Captain thanked everyone for their understanding and not complaining. Just did LAX-HKG no IFE in my seat. Both in J. Did not even consider compensation. First world whining.

CoC is about execution not amenties.

Why not? OP was flying J so what if seat did not recline (and J was full)? Should OP ask for compensation considering it was only a 3 hour flight? What if CX forgot to load champagne? What if CX forgot or didn't load enough food for all passengers? What if luggage didn't arrive with OP and CX put it on the next flight an hour or two later (yes, CX715 is last flight of the day but say OP was flying CX735 and bag arrived with CX635 or CX657)? Where do you draw the line between letting it go and asking for compensation?

OP paid a premium to fly CX and with that premium there's a certain, bare minimum of service that one should expect from CX (other than long-haul seat on this route :D). It's one thing to 'look' for every little mistake and request compensation but I do think it's reasonable to expect IFE to work and when it's not, compensation (money, miles, voucher, etc) is appropriate. OP was not flying TR or 3K.

This happened to me on JFK-BCN last year. I ended up sleeping and like you didn't even consider compensation (it's AA afterall ... ) but AA just emailed me saying they deposited 5000 miles as goodwill gesture ...

Much better than my 5000 miles with AA ...

i always carry one or two plain old style paper based magazines. Can read those things everywhere, including when taking bath, nobody will steal and to be discarded when finished. And it's not the end-of-the-world, when lost or forgotten :D

While not really a biggie, I oftentimes use the IFE to catch up on some of the movies I missed (Incredibles 2 during my last trip) as my current downtime just seems to be inflight. Given that, I can see how this can be utterly frustrating even for a short hop. However, plan B is always my Kindle where I also have a bit of a backlog in my readings.

Actually, I am that busy, that I don't have spare time left to watch movies. During the past couple of flights, I started to watch cartoons :D
The nowadays cartoon movie quality remembers me of Roger Rabit, many moons ago. There are so many hidden plots in good cinema cartoons, that it is a joy to watch.

Hahahaha. FWIW, my last inflight movie on CX was Incredibles 2! :D

I think you mostly answered your question for yourself. Yes, a premium cabin on a premium carrier should not give the impression that it is a LCC. Equally, however, you need to apply some common sense when it comes to the 'compensation culture.' I could add to your list above with, for example, no hand lotion in the bathroom, or perhaps no 'prestige' hand lotion. Maybe the toilet paper was a bit too hard, and not five-ply. What if the air vent above the seat was faulty. One could go on forever. My rule of thumb is that, if it is not covered by some international convention (Montreal/Warsaw, EC261, etc) it probably isn't worth my time to complain.

That's fine... for you. However, I think whilst we could point to those items you highlighted, let's focus on the material aspect of the inflight product not being present for the OP (the inflight entertainment system). I would expect most people to agree this should be functional and is an integral part of the inflight product. If this is not functional then certainly some sort of compensation / gesture of goodwill is due from an airline that presents itself to have high customer service standards. It seems CX has done this from the OP's subsequent posts.