OK that's the same for me too. Was able to book on BA and Malaysian for tickets which did not originate in HK. Did not bother calling Asia Miles to see if there was a manual process to book flights originating from HK on a non CX but One World carrier.
I actually originally managed to use MP miles (back in January) to book a couple of business class flights for my wife and daughter to fly from Portugal to Hong Kong vv June-July.
A few weeks ago those flights were cancelled and they got waitlisted.
I think I have been on the line with Cathay for a total of 5 hours during several sessions while they tried to find alternative flights on the same day, the same week etcetc with me suggesting different routes that I saw were all still available and I could book through the CX website if I paid for them.
The CX staff couldn’t get them on any of these flights and they stayed waistlisted, even though they acknowledged that CX cancelled the flight so they should get a priority booking.… As they couldn’t guarantee that they could actually fly I decided in the end to cancel the redemption flights for a full refund and I bought a couple of tickets with Lufthansa which gets them to Hong Kong on the same day in June as the original itinerary (so they can still use the quarantine hotel).
i used redemtion miles for many long distance flights in the pre-covid era (business, first and premium economy) but in the current state of affairs at CX it seems virtually impossible to find decent itineraries.Probably will look at merchandise too this time.
I am hoping that CX flights to HKG will be available without quarantine by early 2023. If that happens I am not expecting much in the way of redeeming points until flight demand backlog is cleared. Still 6 months to wait for HK to catch up with Singapore.
i tried to use the AM website to claim some UK-EUrope flights. all good until trying to transact at which point i got some error message....will try again once i can be bothered to do so
Directly on Finnair website yes?
I have to say Finnair are fantastic. The planes, the service, the comparative cost, Helsinki airport, the connection times both ways to/from LHR. 2x business class refunds due to Covid alterations.
Isn't the only current downside the inability to fly over Russia? I haven't checked but that must impact flight times?
A) valid pointOriginal Post Deleted
B) they do if you book early enough. I probably redeemed 500k miles during the pandemic. Mostly flying one-way between HK and JFK and one-way to HK from Europe in F. Was really easy to redeem a ticket during the times when most places only allowed citizens and residents to enter.