All posts tagged: Cathay Pacific

Cathay Pacific discontinues waitlist for award flights

Published by

You can no longer waitlist for an award flight from 22 Oct 2021 when you book with Asia Miles Cathay Pacific has most recently added the ability to mix miles and cash in booking Cathay Pacific tickets earlier this year, and along with it, made a small but critical change to the rewards programme. Asia Miles eliminates award waitlisting From 22 Oct 2021, you can no longer waitlist for an award ticket using Asia Miles. This function has been removed across all platforms (i.e. online or through a call centre). This means, awards are either available or unavailable, and if the award space runs out, you are out of luck. As a transitionary measure, existing waitlist bookings will continue to be valid.  If you were already on the waitlist for an award prior to 22 October 2021, that booking will continue to be valid and clear/not clear under the old system. Asia Miles, along with many other frequent flyer programmes such as Krisflyer, used to allow members to waitlist for an award when booking on Cathay Pacific …

Cathay Pacific to merge Asia Miles and Marco Polo Club in new programme to launch in 2022

Published by

No more confusing differences between the two programmes, hooray! In a seemingly fluffy email sent out by Cathay Pacific today, the airline announced a new lifestyle brand named ‘Cathay’. More importantly, Cathay Pacific’s somewhat confusing two loyalty programmes – Asia Miles & Marco Polo Club – will be merged into a single programme in the first half of 2022. What is Cathay? Cathay is touted as the airline’s new master brand, which it said “represents much more than airline travel”, and “seeks to become a premium travel lifestyle brand, consisting of a host of complementary categories – flights, hotels, shopping, dining, wellness, credit cards”. What this essentially means is that Cathay Pacific will now focus on non-flying businesses that traditionally complement travel, held together by a central currency of miles and points. In whole, this is considered an entire ‘travel lifestyle proposition‘. For a start, Cathay will only being rolled out to Hong Kong-based customers. Customers outside of Hong Kong will continue to see Cathay Pacific as the airline and master brand, as it will …

Singapore-Hong Kong ATB launch deferred by two weeks

Published by

The travel bubble bursts for now, bubble slated for re-start on 6 Dec 2020 Travellers hoping to catch the Singapore-Hong Kong air travel bubble (ATB) will now have to wait another two weeks for it to begin, as Hong Kong is facing a possible ‘fourth wave’ in Covid-19 cases. The ATB was originally slated to commence today (22 Nov), but a decision was made on Saturday afternoon to postpone it by two weeks given the unstable situation in Hong Kong. On Saturday (21 Nov 2020), Hong Kong saw a total of 13 unlinked cases, bringing the seven day average of unlinked cases to 3.86. While this did not reach the mutually agreed threshold of 5, both countries agreed that it would be unwise to commence the ATB at this point. Given the evolving situation in Hong Kong, Secretary Edward Yau and I discussed further this afternoon, and decided that it would be better to defer the launch of the ATB, by two weeks. We will review within two weeks on the new launch date and …

Singapore-Hong Kong Air Travel Bubble to start 22 Nov

Published by

Details of the Singapore-Hong Kong ‘Air Travel Bubble’ has been announced. Here’s what you need to know from testing to flights, landing arrangements and more. As promised, the Singapore authorities today shed more light on the details of the first Air Travel Bubble (ATB) arrangements between Singapore and Hong Kong. From 22 Nov, there will be one flight a day with an initial quota of 200 passengers. This increases to 2 flights a day from 7 December, with a total of 400 visitors to be carried each day. The story so far… When the bilateral ATB was first announced back in October 2020 by Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam and Singapore’s Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung, it was met with much excitement by residents on both ends. The excitement arose from the fact that this is the first true leisure travel arrangement, with no restrictions on the type of travel and, more importantly, no quarantine required at either end of the journey. These are some of the facts that were put out for those …

Cathay Pacific to axe 6,000 employees, gets rid of Cathay Dragon brand

Published by

The original plan was to make 8,000 roles redundant. Multiple news outlets today reported that Cathay Pacific will be retrenching 6,000 employees worldwide, with close to 5,000 of these roles lost in Hong Kong itself. The international airline was originally planning to axe up to 8,000 staff, but reduced it to 6,000 after government intervention. The airline will also remove another close to 2,600 unfilled positions, bringing the total tally of positions lost to 8,500. With a total workforce of 33,000 staff, the 6,000 employees axed come to under 20% of its staff strength, signifying a smaller cut that what some other airlines have undertaken. The cuts came after Cathay Pacific Group took up a government aid worth HK$27.3 billion (S$4.8 billion) in June, which came with the condition that the airline must appoint two government selected observers to the board to oversee the investment and protect taxpayers’ money. According to the airline, affected staff will be offered “severance packages that go well beyond statutory requirements”, and extending medical benefits and staff travel entitlements, as …