Cathay Pacific Airways says technical problems associated with changes to its Asia Miles Frequent Flyer program are blocking airline partners from award seats. An airline spokesperson said the redemption process will “return to normal gradually”, but did not provide any specific timeline.
Our system was being upgraded and the redemption process will return to normal gradually. We apologise for the inconvenience caused, please try again later. – Corporate Affairs Department, Cathay Pacific Airways Limited
Meanwhile, anyone looking to book seats on Cathay Pacific using any program other than Asia Miles — including Alaska Airline Mileage Plan, American AAdvantage and British Airways Executive Club — will have to look elsewhere for transpacific award seats.
Cathay Pacific’s First Class seat is currently off-limits to American AAdvantage and other partner frequent flyer members. The airline has provided no timeline on when a technical glitch blocking partner airlines from accessing all award seats will be resolved.
By proxy, the technical snafu prevents Chase Ultimate Rewards members from booking Cathay award flights. American Express Membership Rewards and Citi ThankYou Rewards both offer direct points transfers to Asia Miles.
Juicy Miles award booking experts started noticing the outage in the middle of last week, just as Cathay began a transition to new, less valuable mileage award redemption rates. Agents also noticed an outage of Asia Miles own online booking system, though that outage was resolved.
Cathay appears to have put its partners in a holding pattern, however, leaving anyone with other Oneworld airline frequent flyer miles — or Chase Ultimate Rewards points — unable to access seats on some of the most active transpacific routes, as well as one of the most extensive intra-asian route networks.
This glitch could put many an Asian vacation on hold.
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3 comments
Data point: CX award availability is still viewable via Qantas. Found seats this morning and booked via Alaska MileagePlan. The space was not viewable on BA’s website.
Thanks for your observation, Howard! Qantas was down last week. We are looking into this to make sure it’s persistent, and will post an update as things develop.
[…] Cathay Pacific Airways frequent flyer award seat availability appears to be returning to normal after a technical blackout left partner airlines without access to seat inventories. […]