CX Award Seat Availability: 2x one-way or wait for a return trip

[legroom]

Friends

I wish to ask for some learned advice from the gurus here.

With QF JASA (int), I often snatch the outbound followed by the inbound leg later as two separate legs to minimise the risk of not having the outbound when the inbound becomes available.

Costs wise, it is the same (1+1).

However, with CX, there is an inducement to book a return trip all at the same time.

E.g. SYD HKG 80,000 pts for a return trip but would cost 45,000 pts for each leg if booked separately.

Now, nobody wants to throw away 10,000 pts if one could avoid it.

What have you been doing there with CX ?

Grab one at a time like I have been doing with QF or no, it is low-demand, take it easy, save 10,000 pts in the meantime ??

Thanks in advance

 

[dalereardon]

I haven't done it but just thinking of a solution.

Isn't it 3500 points to amend a booking so you could add the second leg to get the lower points total and only waste 3500 instead of the full 10000?

Dale.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Friends

I wish to ask for some learned advice from the gurus here.

With QF JASA (int), I often snatch the outbound followed by the inbound leg later as two separate legs to minimise the risk of not having the outbound when the inbound becomes available.

Costs wise, it is the same (1+1).

However, with CX, there is an inducement to book a return trip all at the same time.

E.g. SYD HKG 80,000 pts for a return trip but would cost 45,000 pts for each leg if booked separately.

Now, nobody wants to throw away 10,000 pts if one could avoid it.

What have you been doing there with CX ?

Grab one at a time like I have been doing with QF or no, it is low-demand, take it easy, save 10,000 pts in the meantime ??

Thanks in advance

It's tempting to say a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush however could you grab a one way fare now then if/when the return seats become available, cancel that ticket then book a return? Not sure what the canx penalties would be.

Secondly, are the points from the cancelled ticket immediately recredited back into your ff account for you to grab the return ticket?

Alternatively could you book it as a return but book the first return flight you could eg after one day at your destination rather than wait maybe 2 weeks or so for your preferred date to become available? If you did do this are there any change fees involved moving the date of your return CX flight.

If this is CX's Asia Miles ff program, how many days in advance do their seats go on sale?

If it was less than 331 days prior to travel eg 320 days you could always buy some AA points & do a CX award via AAdvantage.

 

[legroom]

Thanks for your input.

The plan is to use Asia Miles (AM) for direct CX booking, not QFF points on QF site.

I read further and it looks like the better bet is to grab it when you can as the penalty is stiff (USD120 or 12,000 AM) for cancellation and for any changes, have to call or email them (USD25 or 1,000 AM).

From what I read, calling AM is not in the same league as calling SQ.

Pending a request for change, the seat may disappear anyway.

For an extra net 9,000 AM (10,000 - 1,000 change fee), you'd get more certainty and less headache IMO.

So, I think I will line up outbound first and then the inbound later when it is available.

Thanks again.