You never know, if you don’t ask

[tmount]

A few of weeks ago, I flew out to Taipei for the weekend. Flying home, my wife and I were on Cathay Pacific, however my wife was in First Class, and I was in Business Class. First world problems, for sure. I had been looking for space via the British Airways Award search tool to no avail. But it occurred to me while my wife and I were walking the streets of Taipei the day before our flight: You never know, if you don’t ask.

So, completely on a whim, I reached out to American Airlines’ Twitter team via DM and asked them if they saw an F saver award seat for the next day.

Surprisingly enough, Cathay Pacific had released the last seat in the cabin for award availability! In the course of 3 or 4 more messages, the American Airlines Twitter team was able to upgrade me into Cathay Pacific First Class. I was even a little concerned there might be some mix-up, but they were abundantly confident:

The Stellar American Air Twitter Team.


All it required was that I provide the expiration date and security code on my credit card.

Ultimately, getting this seat, was as easy as asking the question whether an award seat had become available.

Cathay Pacific First Class


All because I asked the question.

Now, this might not always happen, but you never know, if you don’t ask. You’ll never be told no, but you will also never be told yes. As I wrote near the beginning of this blog, I am a huge proponent of grabbing the brass ring, and this is a perfect example of doing that.

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[knick1959]

Many months ago I booked a nicely timed AA saver award flight to Hawaii for 2 for Jan 2017 (soon!) in F. It was 3 flights / 2 connections total, the last leg on AS. Then, of course, AA canceled one of our connecting flights and replaced the continental staging flights with 2 early morning ick flights with a dangerously short connection time between and 6 HOURS before our flight to Hawaii. I watched for other awards to become available to try to exchange, but nothing showed up. Finally, a couple of weeks ago I found a set of 2 coach flights that would replace the F flights to San Jose (routing through a different city). I called AA and after explaining how a change to our original flights had caused some concerns, asked if we could downgrade to the 2 specific coach flights I provided to get us to the west coast.

I was on hold for some time, but the wonderful CSR came back and said she had managed to get us on the flights requested, but had done so in F! She laughed at my extreme reaction and I thanked her profusely. Although still in 3 segments, our trip in January looks much more comfortable now.