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Is Cathay Pacific Selectively blocking American Airlines?

June 3, 2015 By Trevor 6 Comments





I have a few minutes of downtime this evening after my daily search for reselling products, and have been having travel withdrawal of late, so I pulled up my trusty British Airways search tool and looked for some flights, pursuing my great white whale – Cathay Pacific First Class. Suffice it to say, I was quite surprised when I saw the following availability:

BA Taken 530pm

Next, I checked ExpertFlyer, just to be sure:

EF Taken 730pm

As you can see the flight CX 841 shows F4, A4 available. A friend checked Qantas and saw 2 first class awards as well.

So, I called the American Executive Platinum line and fed the flight to an agent. The first agent couldn’t find any space. The second could find 1 seat available on CX841 and CX831 (as you can see in the first BA graphic), the third could see the same thing. So, I figured it best to book the single seat and see if another seat goes into inventory. Once the 1 seat was on hold, I went back to the BA search tool and found this:

BA Taken 730pm

Oddly ExpertFlyer wasn’t showing any change, but, since BA was showing, I called again – twice. Both times only saw 1 seat availability for CX841.

Nearly a month ago Lucky asked the question: Is Cathay Pacific about to cut off first class awards for partner airlines?

Now, I’m out of time tonight, and honestly, after 5 calls, its no longer fun. So I ask: Have you noticed inconsistencies with CX availability? Further, could Cathay be selectively blocking American Airlines, since American does have a history of “selling” miles?

 

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Filed Under: Airline Programs, Travel, Travel Programs Tagged With: American Airlines, Award Travel, Cathay Pacific

Comments

  1. Eleanor Rigby says

    June 3, 2015 at 9:25 pm

    yes, it seems to me they are…
    I found inventory using BA about two months back that AA couldn’t see.
    This was a close-in booking. Or would have been.

    Reply
  2. Joe says

    June 4, 2015 at 12:11 am

    Hopefully not. A positive datapoint would be I noticed inconsistencies in the past, but not this close in. Maybe I’m just grasping at straws

    Reply
  3. Andy Shuman says

    June 4, 2015 at 12:19 am

    Well, the answer to the first question seems to be YES. CX availability on AA, and, I think BA too, has been going downhill for quite a while. Now why they are doing it, we can only guess, but they are, and it sucks.

    Reply
    • Trevor says

      June 4, 2015 at 7:13 pm

      Well, Cathay did mention they might start blocking… Guess they didn’t give notice.

      Reply
      • Paul says

        June 6, 2015 at 2:03 am

        Seemed to me things went downhill as soon as AS members were able to book CX online. Their award chart makes CX redemptions one of the best deals going.

        Also, because AS allows people to effectively buy unlimited miles at 2c, I suspect many brokers are buying miles, booking F and J, and reselling for large profits. Also, overseas flyers have been buying (although they now need a US address to purchase).

        Add it all up and availability is a lot less than it once was

        Reply
        • Jae says

          June 9, 2015 at 9:11 am

          You can book CX on alaskaair.com ? How? I just used AS miles to book CX last week and could not book online.

          Reply

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