I had planned to be in HKG for New Years so booked an AA award res HKG-KUL-MEL for Jan 3 2015 for 2 pax in J a few months ago. We would have liked to get a direct flight on CX as I'm extremely keen to try their J product. The plan was that if direct seats opened up at T-7 great, we would 'upgrade' with no change fee as origin and destination remain the same, if not, a CX/MH combo was fine.
Plans have now changed and I will be in the Philippines so need to return from either MNL or CEB on Jan 3 (getting there is all fine). Easy, I thought. I'll just find a MNL-KUL flight on MH (Y is fine), change my booking to MNL-KUL-MEL, and again, if something better opens up at T-7 (i.e. MNL-HKG-MEL) great, if not, MH will be fine.
Problem is, there's no MNL-KUL (or MNL-HKG) seats available on Jan 3 or 4, even in Y.
I have to change my existing HKG-KUL-MEL res as I will not be able to make it to HKG in order to make the first flight out of HKG (Im going to a very remote part of the Philippines), so what can I change it to? My options as I see it:
1. Find an earlier MNL-KUL flight that is available (even though I know I cant take it), change to MNL-KUL-HKG and hope to god something I actually can take opens up (set EF alerts etc). This is extremely risky.
2. There is J available CEB-HKG on CX and plenty of options to change my HKG-KUL (literally 8 flights a day, all with J), so could change to CEB-HKG-KUL-MEL. Again, if a direct CX HKG-MEL flight opens up great, if not I can still make the CEB-MEL option. Is CEB-HKG-KUL-MEL a valid routing? There's no direct HKG-MEL seats (even in Y) and MH don't fly to CEB. I've tried finding it as a rev fare on mh.com and cx.com but neither have it as MH dont recognise the origin and CX dont seem to codeshare with MH KUL-MEL. This option is a very long way to get home.
3. Minimise my risk and travel time and change my AA res to just be KUL-MEL and then book a separate Y rev fare either MNL-KUL or CEB-KUL. KUL-MEL on MH seems to be a very poor use of AA miles though given I know their product isnt brilliant.
4. Cancel the AA res, keep the miles for something more valuable and book a 1-way rev fare MNL-KUL MEL in Y for $600 pp.
My partner who Im travelling with enjoys J but doesn't want to go too indirect just to do it (he's fine with Y for day-time flights). A lot of the risk hinges on whether or not CX will release 2 x direct HKG-MEL J seats on either Jan 3 or 4 next year (we are happy to fly separately from HKG).
Which option do you think I should go for? I think 1) is too risky, 2) is a lot of stuffing around just to fly J, 3) is a waste of miles and 4) although not glamorous is the most sensible.
Looking forward to your advice.
Thanks
Plans have now changed and I will be in the Philippines so need to return from either MNL or CEB on Jan 3 (getting there is all fine). Easy, I thought. I'll just find a MNL-KUL flight on MH (Y is fine), change my booking to MNL-KUL-MEL, and again, if something better opens up at T-7 (i.e. MNL-HKG-MEL) great, if not, MH will be fine.
Problem is, there's no MNL-KUL (or MNL-HKG) seats available on Jan 3 or 4, even in Y.
I have to change my existing HKG-KUL-MEL res as I will not be able to make it to HKG in order to make the first flight out of HKG (Im going to a very remote part of the Philippines), so what can I change it to? My options as I see it:
1. Find an earlier MNL-KUL flight that is available (even though I know I cant take it), change to MNL-KUL-HKG and hope to god something I actually can take opens up (set EF alerts etc). This is extremely risky.
2. There is J available CEB-HKG on CX and plenty of options to change my HKG-KUL (literally 8 flights a day, all with J), so could change to CEB-HKG-KUL-MEL. Again, if a direct CX HKG-MEL flight opens up great, if not I can still make the CEB-MEL option. Is CEB-HKG-KUL-MEL a valid routing? There's no direct HKG-MEL seats (even in Y) and MH don't fly to CEB. I've tried finding it as a rev fare on mh.com and cx.com but neither have it as MH dont recognise the origin and CX dont seem to codeshare with MH KUL-MEL. This option is a very long way to get home.
3. Minimise my risk and travel time and change my AA res to just be KUL-MEL and then book a separate Y rev fare either MNL-KUL or CEB-KUL. KUL-MEL on MH seems to be a very poor use of AA miles though given I know their product isnt brilliant.
4. Cancel the AA res, keep the miles for something more valuable and book a 1-way rev fare MNL-KUL MEL in Y for $600 pp.
My partner who Im travelling with enjoys J but doesn't want to go too indirect just to do it (he's fine with Y for day-time flights). A lot of the risk hinges on whether or not CX will release 2 x direct HKG-MEL J seats on either Jan 3 or 4 next year (we are happy to fly separately from HKG).
Which option do you think I should go for? I think 1) is too risky, 2) is a lot of stuffing around just to fly J, 3) is a waste of miles and 4) although not glamorous is the most sensible.
Looking forward to your advice.
Thanks
