Questions and Answers

My partner is an AA exec plat, and was scheduled on a flight out of DC to Bangkok this evening: DCA-LAX-HKG-BKK. With the crazy storm on the east coast, his flight was cancelled and he was rebooked on a Qatar Air flight out of IAD. However, AA couldnt get Cathay Pacific to release him from his ticket (It was a flight booked with AA, and AA cancelled his check-in immediately, but apparently needed Cathay to “release” the HGK-BKK portion of his flight). The Plat Exec desk has been on hold with Cathay for more than 2.5 hours now. I reached a Cathay rep on twitter, who responded once, advising me that Jordan needed to cancel his check in. I responded noting that his checkin had been cancelled, and that AA simply needed Cathay to release their portion of the ticket. The Cathay rep never responded to that message, and I’ve made repeated attempts. He has now missed his flight on Qatar Air that he had a confirmed seat on. And is about to miss another flight on Etihad out of IAD that he just got a confirmed seat on. How INSANE is this? He isn’t allowed to board a flight until Cathay “releases” their portion of his original ticket. But Cathay won’t pick up the phone, and even when I reached a real human on twitter, refused to acknowledge what was happening and stopped responding. (It is also worth noting that I was able to reach Cathay on twitter and the AA exec plat desk has been unable to reach them for more than 2.5 hrs now)…

Kindly request you share this.
Thank you,
-Mike

The end of the saga: An hour after I told Cathay via DM that they needed to release the check-in for the HGK-BKK leg, they messaged me back and noted that they did it “as emergency”. However, it was too late to make any of the remaining available flights, so he had to rebook for tomorrow night. Noone at Cathay ever answered the phone after 3 hours on hold. Because of this insane lack of responsiveness, he missed two flights this evening that he had a confirmed seat on.

Consider yourself lucky for getting anything done via Twitter at all – Asian airlines usually do not operate this way. Cathay answers their elite member calls first and there are so many – for others the waiting time could indeed be for hours. Also, I think you will need to place another call after 120 minutes on hold for technical reasons. Any particular reason to choose CX given its service standards nowadays? Next time book QR instead.