cheeykong

My flight CX 841 from JFK to HKG upgrade was unavailable upon booking (I called Asia Miles to confirm availability before booking this flight and they said yes, there is availability). This flight is leaving on August 24, which is still half a year away, but I'm just concerned what are my chances of upgrading to business using miles? Should I try giving Asia Miles a call and see what I can do? And how often should I check back on the portal to see if the upgrade button is available? Thank you!

etkuo

cheeykong

Hi! Thank you for the quick reply. I'm just wondering how would I put my name down on the waitlist? There wasn't a button available on the upgrade page. Should I give Asia Miles customer service a call? The hotline is a bit challenging to reach, and it keeps saying that the number is not available/not reachable.

cheeykong

Hello! I booked a flight today, which is not departing until late Aug 2019. I spoke with an agent regarding using AM miles to upgrade from premium economy to biz, and they told me there will be availability on the date I wanted to fly out. I got off the phone and booked the specific flight they told me there is availability. When I got to the upgrade page, it was saying that "upgrade unavailable" for my flight departing from JFK to KUL. I called AM again, which I tried SO MANY times because everytime I called, I either get a message saying the number you have dialed is not available or simply was not reachable. Finally, I spoke with an agent, she basically told me that there is no availability, and cannot be waitlisted as well. I was however able to upgrade my returning flight from KUL to JFK.

I'm just wondering if anyone experienced something similar, and how did you overcome the situation? The agent also told me to check the site everyday to see if there is availability, which I'm not sure if this is something I should be doing. Also, what time does CX usually update the page/release upgrade seats if applicable? Thank you for all your help!

shd9

cheeykong

Hi shd9 - If I were to do it online, where would I go? I can't seem to locate the waitlist button. Thanks for your help!

percysmith

shd9

I just played around with my bookings. It used to be you can just redeem for upgrade from the 'Manage by booking' site but the new MMB got rid of this feature... And over the last two days they updated the system so it is no longer possible to get back to the old MMB website.

I am not sure if this would work for an Asiamiles member, but if you first log into your asiamiles account on Cathay Pacific.com, click Marco Polo Club, and select redeem flight awards. Under "more awards" there is an Upgrade award section, click into it the system would search your eligible bookings, and you can select your booking and click upgrade. If seats are unavailable it would show "waitlist". Like this:

sscywong

Alternatively, have CX.com open, call AM and ask if redemption is available, if yes, ask the agent to hold for a minute and immediately book via CX.com, then ask the agent to ticket the upgrade

Gongzuokuang

This was covered on another thread. That might work for a DM. It doesn't always work for us peasants.

suziemay

I recently flew JFK-HKG-KUL. The online waitlist for upgrades doesn't seem to be working. I called Marco Polo Club and they waitlisted for me. Are you a Marco Polo member or just Asia Miles?

Another issue is apparently because I purchased the HKG-KUL leg through Cathay, it's a "codeshare" flight with Cathay Dragon so I was informed this wasn't upgradeable. I was really confused by this but didn't really care that much to upgrade this leg so I gave up talking to the rep and hung up. Not sure if this happened to you but wanted to mention in case it helps clear anything up.

shd9

Just checked... maybe this is a married segment issue! While my oHKG-DAD portion is upgradable and able to waitlist, my outbound DAD-HKG booked in Y, which is a connection to JFK, is not upgradable online. So I guess Cathay website is not smart enough to process an upgrade request on one portion of a connection.

In addition to the codeshare you mentioned, if this is a mixed class (KA probably doesn't have PEY on HKG-KUL) booking, you will need to claim two separete awards for upgrade, which is a pretty bad value IMO.

suziemay

For my reservation, nothing was waitlist-able online. When I spoke to the Marco Polo representative, he was able to waitlist the JFK-HKG leg, no problem. But then mumbled something about the HKG-KUL leg being a codeshare with KA so he couldn't do an upgrade. I think he said if it were a direct KA booking then he could have. But that would mean I would have had to book two separate return flights? It didn't sound like there was any possible way to upgrade even if I wanted to waitlist as a separate upgrade redemption so I gave up.

cheeykong

Oh my.. thank you so much for all your help! Yep, it was a codeshare situation actually. I spoke with four different AM agents that same day trying to figure out the situation. The first two basically told me no availability, and the third person I spoke with told me it's most likely the codeshare flight I have from HKG to KUL could have impacted my upgrade eligibility (but she wasn't able to help because I gave them my wrong email for verification purpose) and told me to call again. So, when I got the the fourth person, she told me there is no availability on the day I requested, and I had to explain to her about the codeshare situation, then she finally was able to put in a request to "sort of" separate my flight and upgrade my JFK to HKG ticket.

I think many of the agents isn't aware of the codeshare situation so it's certainly worth mentioning to them when you call AM (which takes forever to reach them because the number doesn't seem to work), which could be a reason why everytime they pulled up my record, they basically just told me there was not availability the day I requested.

cheeykong

Also, even if you have a connecting codeshare flight, the AM agent I spoke with told me it wouldn't matter, and you're still eligible to upgrade for whichever sector of your flight.