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Wishing to book a cash ticket to HKG from LHR , not sure whether to book BA or CX for the trip , never flown premium on either carrier , price is the same . Not sure which one will be better . I’m a BA gold member also
Advice appreciated
Both are in One World so your Gold status will be recognised on CX so you’ll get access to their F lounge as LHR T3 and other Gold benefits.
You’ll still earn avios and TPs if you credit to BA.
With CX you could do a daytime flight heading west?
Also if this matters, check the aircraft layout. As I recall for both the CX A350 and BA A380 I flew this route on, it was quite a walk from PE back to the lavs as they were at the back of Y.
@ swiss Tony Thanks, which seat did you find more comfortable? Which airline had the better service in your experience (I know this varies by type of crew)
I’ve travelled on both BA and CX in PE and find the BA seat is better. I do like the upper deck of BA’s A380 in PE.
@ swiss Tony Thanks, which seat did you find more comfortable? Which airline had the better service in your experience (I know this varies by type of crew)
It was pre-COVID so a massive caveat on the soft product. CX edged it with the food and service for me, but I also managed to get bulkhead seats both ways.
I don’t think there is much in it seat-wise for me. I tend to pick a window seat as I can squish on my side a bit and use a pillow against the side of the plane. Nothing like a lie flat seat, but PE is how I fly for work.
Food is similar, but you do get the dim sum option for breakfast on CX which I prefer. Outbound you get to use the Cathay lounge in T3 which is far better than the BA. T3 has the new scanners in fast track now which I found made security as quick as the T5 first wing albeit with T3’s long walks.
I got acknowledged on Cathay 100% of the time and on BA 50% of the time. Mostly it was a hello rather than anything actually useful like an amenity kit or champagne.
Can’t say which IFE is better as I never use it.
Much of a muchness I’d say. I typically pick CX because I do a mix of Taiwan and mainland China and it’s significantly cheaper. But not your problem as you say. Were it me, I’d choose CX for the LHR lounge.
I flew CX in PE last March to HKG and back. I will be avoiding CX in the future.
On BA the cabin crew frequently come by with water or sometimes orange to drink. With CX they brought you nothing more to drink after the meal (a bottle of water was provided at the seat on boarding). I had to either use the call button (which I don’t like doing as it feels rather demanding) or go to the galley myself. After a trip the galley myself to get water (which I politely asked for) the crew response was offhand and clearly not wanting to be bothered, I then resorted to using the call button.
We had a meal shortly after departure – and the food was fine, but nothing special. When I woke after 5-6hrs the “menu” had claimed I could get noodles or a snack, but when I asked I was told there was no food left – not even a biscuit. I was over 10 hours into a approx 14hr flight and had not eaten for about 7 hours so I was starting to get a little hungry. With my disbelief at the “no food left” the cabin member said she would go into business class and see if they had anything. She did return with an apple – which was much appreciated as it was all I had to eat in a 12hr period.The crew also did not collect any rubbish through out the flight, so by the end my seat point was stuffed with empty water bottles to the point I had to put several on the floor. This was the case for everyone, so on landing the rubbish all rolled forward accordingly.
So my experience on CX was poor service and lack of food and water. I will fly BA next time … but the CX lounges are nicer 🙂
Another +1 for A380 upstairs PE!
This is really interesting to read – I think my instinct would have been to opt for CX, but it would appear that would have been quite wrong! Does the situation change if flying in J?
I guess it probably would given it’ll be old Club World on BA’s A380s?
Thanks all for the feedback . The BA flights are actually on a 787 and 777 so no A380
I’ve flown CX before in Asia for a short 2-3 hour flights , found the crew fine and the manager always recognised me as a gold member , never had this with BA
My instinct would have be CX but maybe BA might be better , good thing with CX is that they have a day flight on the return .
Decisions to be made
Before covid, CX was definitely the best choice if the cost was similar to BA. When booking CX I could trust the flight would always be at least satisfactory. When booking BA because CX was too pricey, I would have a subconscious dread that couldn’t be quashed until actually getting on board.
Now CX has become just as variable. If you don’t get a crew who are mostly from Hong Kong, they don’t mesh together well and it just feels like a random foreign airline. In the past 1.5 years I’ve now taken 9 CX flights and the difference between a mostly HK (including London-based HK British who are not necessarily “from” HK) and non-HK crew is pretty stark. I would say that perhaps in J this is a bit less noticeable because of the increased privacy.
Acknowledgement yes you’d get it on CX all the time because they follow the protocol. Whereas on BA while the crew are all well-meaning it often feels very casual / less slick, some might say unprofessional. That said I have done one BA LHR-HKG since covid (in Y) and that flight was unproblematic, even the Y meals were not as bad as expected.
The snacks situation on CX is as described above and based on multiple flights, it’s not a one-off – not sure if they just don’t actually load the things they say they have (in which case why print it on the menu) or greedy passengers snatched them all up or the crew kept some for themselves…
Typically meals on long-hauls (where there is no dine on demand) will be served shortly after takeoff and just before arrival, but I have read elsewhere that on some CX flights the crew decided to wake everyone up in the middle of the flight and serve the second meal (even though it didn’t make sense in the timezones context), then have nothing left over for the remaining 5-6 hours. Hasn’t happened to me yet though.
So my conclusion is just book whatever makes most sense in terms of price and schedule, and anything else which is important for that trip such as luggage or flexibility.
Assuming you book direct with each airline, for the same cash price you say, and assuming not a sky high price, then Cathay would likely earn significantly more Avios using the old earn system, vs BA at per £ spent?
One counter-Cathay thing that I forgot about – they seem to be terrible at crediting your BAEC account. I got a couple of short haul flights credited within 24 hours, but the long haul flights are still not in my account a month later. Last time the online form didn’t help either and I needed to call BA twice to get them credited.
I got put in a WTP seat a year ago on a flight from ALG, it was a 20 year old (or thereabouts age range) Boeing 777-200, and from siting in the seat, it was clear to me that was hardly worth the premium, maybe so if you needed extra TPs and or extra baggage and it’s the cheapest and or easiest way of doing so.
It’s not too say that this is case with all airlines, many do make some real effort, VS’s offering is usually in high demand
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