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Technically the two airlines aren’t partners
Everyone wants to fly Cathay Pacific First Class. It’s incredible. But, what if you want to fly onward or originate elsewhere, and transit through Hong Kong? To book that sort of ticket with Alaska Airlines, for just 70k miles, you’d need the entire ticket on Cathay Pacific metal. Yes, Alaska and Cathay Pacific are partners, and yes, Cathay Pacific owns 100% of Cathay Dragon, but NO, you can’t redeem Alaska miles on Cathay Dragon. So how did I do it?
As you can see in the picture above, Cathay Dragon First Class is very similar, in hard product, to the business call you’ll find on Cathay Pacific longhaul business class. Lie flat, nice IFE, reverse herringbone, and just 8 seats in 1-2-1 configuration.
I was traveling back from Shanghai through Hong Kong to Chicago on a #weekendwarrior trip. We’d booked Cathay First on the longhaul from HKG to ORD with a stop in Hong Kong for a night.
My buddy, Dave, had redeemed Asia miles for his redemption, and I had booked mine with Alaska miles. When I found the flights and routing for our trip back, we were restricted by my Alaska miles, and had to stick to Cathay metal all the way through. The 777 that flies from PVG to HKG we were booked on has no first class and features the following business class. Not bad for a 3 hour flight, but not the best we could do.
I had an idea that would require a day of, at the airport switch, and had been tracking the load of earlier flights via expertflyer. Seats were open in First Class on a Cathay Dragon flight that departed 2 hours before our flight, and would give us more time in Hong Kong along with a much better ride for the 3 hour flight.
If you paid for first class, you are entitled to first class if the space is available from end to end.
This is something that a lot of people don’t realize. If you booked a multi-leg itinerary, and at the time of booking the cabin you paid for isn’t available, but is at check-in, you should always request to be moved to the better cabin.
I knew that Alaska Miles couldn’t technically be redeemed for Cathay Dragon, but also surmised that at check-in that probably didn’t matter. I tested that theory first.
When Dave and I were in the middle of check-in, I requested that we both be moved to the earlier Cathay Dragon flight. I’d seen the business class cabin was roughly half full, and only 2 of the 8 first class seats were taken. Without a hiccup buttons were clicking, and she moved us. This confirmed my suspicion that it could be done without much effort, and that there wasn’t anything hardcoded onto my ticket that would prevent it.
Once we had been moved, I then requested that both of us be moved to First Class.
I figured that asking for both at one time would be overwhelming, and wanted to get each step achieved independently. Since we weren’t continuing on directly, the gate agent didn’t quite understand why that should happen. Once I explained to her the situation, and she pulled up the rest of our itinerary, she made a call. Within a minute or two we had our new seats. Incredible.
A quick peek at our Cathay Dragon First Class ride from Shanghai to Hong Kong.
One cool thing that I saw the staff do, which is just exemplary of the excellence provided by Cathay Pacific, had to do with lint from a blanket. One passenger was wearing a dress and the blanket had left quite a bit of lint on it. Once brought to the attention of the crew, a lint roller and sticky replacements were brought, and a female attendant assisted the passenger in removing the lint. How amazing is that?!
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
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