Devaluation of BA program could see CX transpac award availability squeezed in short term

In the BA forum and the blogosphere, they're talking about the new BA award chart which will be fully introduced in November. Some awards using BA miles on BA metal will fall in cost; however...

One of the highlights of BA's current award chart is the partner awards for travel between North America and Asia on JL or CX for 25/50/75k BA miles each way for Y/C/F award tix. With the new award chart, which they haven't fully disclosed yet but some details have emerged, BA is reducing the cost of some awards on their own metal from previously ridiculously high levels for premium awards but likely aligning (i.e., raising) the cost of awards on their partners.

Upshot is that there are a lot of Americans with lots of BA miles earned from credit card sign up bonuses, and one of the more popular redemptions is the premium class CX award tix.

So, if you were planning to redeem a CX transpac award, do it sooner than later.

Did it last night. Got 2 tix SFO-HKG in FC for December. Can't say that I was seeing a lot of availability so I would say the feeding frenzy is well underway.

US members with lots of BA miles ramping up their burn won't meaningfully affect CX award availability. Sure, at some margins. But it'll be a blip. Not that many people know the risks to the BAEC at this moment. Not that many will redeem for CX first class. But certainly those that do, get while the gettins' good.

My own BA balance is pretty low these days having burned 300k for 2 first class awards over Thanksgiving...

I've been waiting for inventory to open for a planned trip to Asia in the fall of 2012 (LAX-HKG-BKK-SIN-HKG-LAX). Now I know my cutoff date is likely Nov 15. I'm worried though that if I wait until early November to book the trip, I'll be running into award space problems as others are trying to burn their miles at the last minute too.

This pacifies me, but can I be sure?

The other time I can go on this trip would be in May of 2012, but golly it would be HOT. Award space is available for May, so I guess I could book for May and then change to November if space is available then. How easy is it to change a BA award itinerary with multiple stopovers online for free? Or would I be stuck with the $70 fee to call in the change?

While I doubt you'll have a problem with November, for flights where schedule isn't loaded yet no way to be sure, less about demand for awards before the changes to the BA program and more about no way to know exactly what CX will load. Although CX has been pretty darned generous about making award seats available when loading their schedule.

The LAX flight is harder to get than SFO. You could always do the award ex-SFO if need be.

Though your idea is what i would do, book the May trip now to lock it in and change later. You will wind up paying the $70pp fee to change (and I'd be surprised if you could even get a CX award with stopover booked at BA.com, more often than not I can't). View it as cheap insurance.

Were you planning to travel CX between BKK and SIN on an award? or is this an open jaw. I thought only one stopover in each direction in addition to HKG was permitted on the BA awards. Note if flying in J, the BKK-HKG vv segment is a lot harder than to get than the SIN-HKG route.

I booked SFO-HKG RT in first but intend to add SGN and come back via BKK. I have found in the past that I have needed to call the call centre to add those legs as I have struggled to get them to show up. Think it might be because my International is in First, but Cathay only sell Business/Economy on the Vietnam flights. I have never been charged the $70 fee when I call in.

BA allows unlimited stopovers provided you are traveling a direct routing. HKG, BKK, and SIN should be permissable stops.

i am a little worried. i have about 600K in the kitty and only travel from NA to asia on award travel on CX and JAL with BA miles. i will be not to happy if J goes over 100K per. i was hoping to book YYZ-HKG-DPS-HKG-YYZ for feb. 2013....for 4....that is sort of up in the air now.

Already booked JFK-HKG-DPS and back in CX F for next summer. It definitely looks like the BA program will become useless for these Asia awards and that is the primary reason I accrued so many BA miles... so I'm dumping them all.

If I were going for F instead of J, I'd definitely do SFO as there are more seats in F. I'm just hoping to get the new Cirrus J class seats on the 777 out of LAX rather than being stuck with coffin class on the 747 out of SFO. I heard they were not going to upgrade the 747 but rather phase them out.

They are not planning on upgrading the 747s. ORD and JFK also have the new J seats on 777s.

Exactly, and we don't know how long the 747s will stay in service through SFO. I chose LAX because I'll likely have to buy a revenue ticket to get there from SLC. It is the closest and often cheapest gateway for me to reach.

It looks like most days have 2-3 flights going out of LAX and the J award availability looks pretty good.

I recently booked jfk-hkg-bkk and back for the middle of next year. There seemed to be plenty of award space in J available.

Yup this is true. My BA miles are going to be substantially de-valued, and I already booked my trips to Asia using both CX and JL next year. I had a hard time finding availability, but was able to make it work in the end.

Nor the 343s.

The upcoming winter schedules have SFO going 10x weekly 74As & 4x weekly 77Ws. CX872/873 remains a daily 74A. CX870/879 is 74A Tu, Th, Sa and 77W Su, Mo, We, Fr.

Noticed the same thing and got myself an F award HKG-LAX with about 2 weeks notice. Saw quite a few seats opeing up 3 - 7 days out.