Cathay Pacific Partner Award Availability Returns to Normal
If you've been frustrated in the last few days about being unable to book Cathay Pacific awards with partner miles, there's good news to report. Following last week's online glitch, Cathay partner award booking capabilities appear to be back on track.
After the most recent devaluation of Cathay Pacific's Asia Miles went into effect on Friday, a technical blackout left Cathay's OneWorld partner airlines unable to access the carrier's inventory. Travelers around the world widely reported the same issues, including TPG readers who confirmed that American Airlines booking agents also said they could not find any Cathay award space.
All of the issues above appear to have been resolved, with Point Me to the Plane reporting that award searches on OneWorld partners Qantas and British Airways now display Cathay Pacific award seats again. We did a few searches of our own and confirmed that economy, premium economy, business and first class space all appear to now be showing again at ba.com:
Cathay Pacific is one of the best ways to utilize the Oneworld alliance to reach the Asia-Pacific region, with very competitive points and miles redemptions available through its partners — especially for travelers who rely on the American AAdvantage program to access award travel to Asia. Business class to Hong Kong (HKG) to or from the US is 70,000 AAdvantage miles one way, with first class at 110,000 miles.
Remember, though, that aa.com won't show you Cathay award space — you'll need to search for it through one of the sites above and then call in to American to book your ticket with AAdvantage miles.
Cathay Pacific responded to TPG regarding the system outage, saying, "Our system was being upgraded and the redemption process will return to normal gradually. We apologise for the inconvenience caused, please try again later."