Our company uses swire as well, no idea why, they cost more than booking directly with the airline lol. Always pushing us to issue the ticket or it will be cancelled and new price quotation issued afterwards even for a flight more than a month away.
Yeah it shits me off. If they think someone who travels with them 4 or 5 times a year is not worthy to keep their entry level green card is up to them and that's an interesting decision but fair enough. But to play some game and dangle it in front of me like a carrot and say "Well you failed, but we'll give it to you anyway because your such a great guy" does nothing to encourage me to fly with these wankers. It's a green card, not a silver, gold or diamond.
If you have the CX AMEX card then you get green automatically?
Nandas does it and most of the Indian agents will do it for you. You can even request a specific fare class to rack up club miles etc and they can sort it out.
@mandm
I think you do and also if you have the new CX Card issued by Synchrony bank in the US.
Just as an alternative option for the less frequent travelers, I moved to Finnair (which is One World) a few years ago after I was demoted to green on Cathay. Finnair have a great airpoints scheme. They also have codeshare flights a lot more in asia and can get airpoints on other One World flights anyway. I don't fly that much, but have managed to get to Platinum (their Diamond Card equivalent) which seems totally ridiculous but awesome. They also have lifetime points, which if you traveled a lot would be awesome. I won't fly enough to ever get a lifetime gold or platinum.
I have oddly been upgraded more on Cathay since I moved to Finnair than when I was with Cathay!
It might not suit everyone, but they have great specials to Europe, no premium economy so my two return flights to Europe this summer (HKD 4,300 and HKD 6,200) I'm upgraded on my free upgrades (from being platinum) to business class flat bed on brand new planes on all sectors for both flights. Yes there is a transfer in Helsinki, can be as short as 45 minutes, but for me that's fine may be a deal breaker for others.
And Finnair has amazingly good customer service, it's a breath of fresh air.
Anyway, just thought I'd throw it out there as it is a bit left field!
~I don't work for Finnair, I don't know anyone who does, and I kind of don't want to tell people how good they are as I don't want it to change haha~
@Kiz - do they (Finnair) have any partner credit cards in HK?
This is really useful information - thanks.
I flew on Finnair a couple of years ago and generally liked it. The Helsinki transfer was actually excellent for me (and enabled me to fly through to Exeter, which is far more convenient than Heathrow for where I was going!). I will renew Cathay this year because of a few business class flights to USA, Europe and Australia - but after that I think I will be looking for a new One World carrier. I will look into their scheme.
How much do you travel? Were you Diamond on Cathay before or not? I can certainly understand that if you are OW Emerald now but were less on Cathay before you would get more upgrades.. Cathay are pretty good on their upgrades. OW Emerald seem to come a close second to Diamonds.