Mumbai-Dubai-HKG-Mumbai Economy
Mumbai-Dubai-HKG-Mumbai Economy
Oops, I should have known. Award availbility to/from Middle East/India are limited.
After you waitlist, are you checking back from time to time on availability?
I have managed to use asiamiles a number of times on the HKG-LHR route with no problem but always for upgrades from econ to business class.
Don't forget that as a part of the 1-world alliance you can use miles to purchase seats (but not upgrades) on the other 1-world airlines.
The thing some of us are not too happy about is that CP have changed the rules for upgrades. We cannot now upgrade from the lower-priced economy class codes...only full or near-full economy price tickets can now be upgraded with points...and of course the super-bargain basement tickets have no FF miles attached to them.
Ease/Difficulty of redemption is public knowledge. In fact, it is published on Asia Miles web site. Long-haul are bad in general. On top of that, there are limited OneWorld flights to Dubai. I think there are only CX and BA serving DBX from the OneWorld camp. Another option is to try using some other Asia Miles partners.
Award redemption for myself is never a problem, but I can see how that can be limiting for neha.
Last edited by fsklee; 20-09-2007 at 04:41 PM.
I had enough time to check back. I wanted to move a day forward adn they said no not even waitlisting was avaialble. I just feel that with other airline programes like Singaporeair, American, united and even some European airlines it is lot easier to get upgrades or redemption tickets. With Cathay for popular routes u really need to book in advance comparetively. Also we had to issue the ticket as his miles were expiring in April adn we issue dthe ticket in Feb/March
That's very different to your initial statement of seats being limited by Cathay on that route.
If they are complicit on purposely reducing the number of seats they make available then they are in the wrong.
If, by limited, you mean that they are limited due to poularity that is different.
I used to fly UA quite a bit. I have not flown them for a while, but redemption is very easy on UA.
I have no problem redeeming Asia Miles for myself, but when I did a business class full redemption award for my father between HKG and SFO, I got one segment confirmed in business and one segment waitlisted in both economy and business. A few days later, the economy was confirmed. It was not until eight hours before departure that the business class seat could be confirmed.
It is worth checking back all the time, and be very flexible. You can also check on seatcounter.com for the economy loading. If the loading is not bad, there is a fair chance that an award seat can be released a few days to a few hours before the flight.
There are only limited number of award seats in each award bucket in each flight - full redemption economy, business, first; upgrade economy->business, business->first; companion tickets, etc.
In addition, the waitlist is not a pure waitlist. It is prioritised. Marco Polo members (or perhaps even OneWorld Sapphire/Emerald) will have higher priorities depending on their tier level, and whether they are redeeming for themselves or for others.
Even if award are all used up, it is still possible for some Marco Polo members to take away revenue seats.
Did I misunderstand your question?
Last edited by fsklee; 20-09-2007 at 05:13 PM. Reason: Add one question at the end - not sure if I misunderstaood the question
Some items I forgot to mention on Asia Miles:
* After October 15, only HBHK fares are upgradable. By then, I think upgrade awards economy->business will be easier as most people will be holding the less expensive MLV fares. Not too many travelers are willing to pay more when a lower fare is available.
* AA upgrades with AAdvantage miles are limited to certain fares. However, there are more upgradable fares if Asia Miles is used (instead of AA miles).