Planning a OneWorld first class award to Asia!

As I posted about a few days ago, Cathay Pacific has plenty of award space in first class on the YYZ-HKG route for the next year or so, even for two people on the same flight, which is very rare otherwise. YYZ-HKG is operated by the 777-300ER, which has only six seats in first class, so seeing 1/3 of those going to award passengers is incredible. Considering that Cathay Pacific’s new first class product is rated the best in the world by Skytrax, I was determined to try it out. The thought of a product topping Singapore first just blows my mind. For those not too familiar with Cathay, check out this incredible virtual experience showcasing the new product they offer. Anyway, enough airplane porn, there’s more to talk about.

So my dad and I haven’t traveled together in over a year, so he was the perfect travel partner, not to mention that he’s the one with the AA miles! The challenge was finding a time that we’d be able to take such a trip, and we ended up deciding on next March during my spring break. After a bit of destination searching we decided we wanted to visit Manila (it’s one of the bigger Asian cities we’ve yet to see), and the award searching began. After probably a dozen calls to AA with a ton of changes, here’s what I have so far (which is on hold until tomorrow, at which point I’ll ticket) for two people:

Day 01 / AA1301 / TPA-DFW / 07:25AM-09:15AM / MD-80 / First
Day 01 / AA1252 / DFW-YYZ / 10:55AM-02:50PM / 737-800 / Business
Day 02 / CX0827 / YYZ-HKG / 12:15AM-04:00AM +1 / 777-300ER / First
Day 04 / CX0919 / HKG-MNL / 02:40PM-04:40PM / 747-400 / First
Day 09 / CX0902 / MNL-HKG / 08:00PM-10:00PM / 777-300 / Business
Day 10 / CX0504 / HKG-NRT/ 09:05AM-02:00PM / 747-400 / First
Day 10 / JL0008 / NRT-JFK / 06:40PM-06:20PM / 747-400 / First
Day 11 / AA1165 / JFK-MIA / 08:15AM-11:20PM / 767-200 / First
Day 11 / AA1960 / MIA-TPA / 03:05PM-04:05PM / 737-800 / First

All thoughts/comments are welcome, because as I said I have a day to still make changes. I’m pretty happy with the award since we have three segments in Cathay first, a couple of opportunities to use “The Wing,” one of the highest rated lounges in the world, and even have a long segment in the new JAL first class. Once this is confirmed the hotel quest’ll have to begin. You can bet I’ll be writing a detailed report on this one!