Cathay Pacific will be starting service between Chicago and Hong Kong on September 1, and to promote the route, they’ll be selling 100 tickets for $100 each including tax.

Every Thursday in July (starting tomorrow) they’ll be selling 25 tickets on this page at 3:25PM central time. The first 25 people to fill out the entry page will get the tickets each week.

As far as I can tell the only restrictions are that one has to be a resident of the US and at least 18 years old. I don’t see any date restrictions, and given that this is a new route, I’m guessing they’ll be pretty flexible.

Obviously flying coach on a 15 hour flight isn’t much of a “prize” for many, but then again, that’s an amazing fare to an amazing city, and Cathay Pacific probably isn’t the worst airline in the world to be stuck in coach on.

It’s also worth mentioning that if you’re looking to redeem miles on Cathay Pacific (be they American AAdvantage miles, British Airways Executive Club miles, or miles in a different program), Cathay Pacific has excellent award space on this new route. I’ve even seen some dates with four first class award seats, which is amazing given that there are only six first class seats on the 777s operating this route.

(Tip of the hat to The Points Guy)

Posted on July 6th, 2011 by lucky
Filed under: Cathay Pacific, Great Deals | 26 Comments »

  1. July 6th, 2011 at 11:03 pm

    Mark said,

    On a related note, what’s BA’s stopover policy on single-partner roundtrip award tickets? I’m planning on taking CX to SE Asia and I’d like to stop in HKG for a few days.

  2. July 7th, 2011 at 1:31 am

    Emil said,

    You can stop at HKG for as long as you want. The constraint on BA partner awards is that you can’t use multiple partners, which typically means that you only have 1 possible place where you could stop–the partner’s hub.

    However, you can actually book two separate one-way trips, each with a stopover. So e.g. you could do ORD-HKG-TPE on Cathay and TPE-NRT-ORD on JAL. (Or you could even make it an open jaw trip, leaving from somewhere else or ending up in another US city.)
    This sort of plan gives you an extra stopover city, and the taxes & fees are generally lower when you use BA miles on JAL.

  3. July 7th, 2011 at 2:38 am

    Kennedy said,

    Tickets have to be used before Dec. 31st 2011

  4. July 7th, 2011 at 4:28 am

    deltaGOLDflyer said,

    Would you not also earn 15586 AA or BA miles and EQM’s for $100?

    Or no miles for this promo fare? (I see nothing in the T&C that says no miles earned)

  5. July 7th, 2011 at 6:25 am

    lucky said,

    @ deltaGOLDflyer — Apparently you can accrue miles through Asia Miles, though none of the other programs.

  6. July 7th, 2011 at 7:00 am

    TaxRequired said,

    You need to pay taxes and fees. How much? $500?
    Terms “The winner is responsible for all taxes and fees associated with prize receipt and/or use.”

    http://www.cathaypacificusa.com/100TicketsFor100Dollars/pdf/100_terms.pdf

  7. July 7th, 2011 at 8:21 am

    Ivan said,

    I called the SFO office. Taxes are another $400-500 depending on when you depart. You are responsible for ALL YQ taxes.

  8. July 7th, 2011 at 8:42 am

    Ben said,

    How great of a deal is this?

    With taxes, the flight will cost approximately $600. On Cathay’s web site they are selling tickets (Sat – Sat in Nov) for $960 (inclusive of taxes).

  9. July 7th, 2011 at 9:07 am

    jmd001 said,

    Is there any way to use AA miles to upgrade the $100 ticket?

  10. July 7th, 2011 at 9:40 am

    johndeere19 said,

    If you really have to pay YQ and taxes for the winnings, this “deal” actually ends up more expensive than buying the actual ticket. $100+$450(avg YQ)+~$800 or so for taxes (ARV is $2900) on this so called “deal”…not so great.

  11. July 7th, 2011 at 10:32 am

    Stephen said,

    Wow. This is funny in a good way. I booked an F award on this flight back in May for around Thanksgiving. I didn’t realize it was new service.

  12. July 7th, 2011 at 10:37 am

    Charlotte said,

    That’s too bad that they’re making people pay the fees. Seems like more of a marketing gimmick than an actual benefit to their customers.

  13. July 7th, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    johndeere19 said,

    I stand corrected…according to TPG, all taxes and fees are covered. The $2,900 is the ARV of the grand prize.

  14. July 7th, 2011 at 2:29 pm

    Tammy said,

    Clicked at EXACTLY 3:25pm

    Sorry!
    You are not one of the first 25 visitors.

    You are visitor 866.

    Waiting about 20 seconds and clicked again and I was visitor 7080.

    WOW, didn’t think there would be that many people even trying for it! Oh well, to the 25 who got it: enjoy the trip!

  15. July 7th, 2011 at 2:31 pm

    Erik said,

    I was #325. Anyone who seriously believed there wouldn’t be a lot of people after this was kidding themselves. Also, the “purchase” button went live at about 3 seconds after according to the clock they referenced.

  16. July 7th, 2011 at 2:32 pm

    IPBrian said,

    Yep, I got 1040…bummer.

  17. July 7th, 2011 at 2:37 pm

    Max Jones said,

    I got 37. Darn…

  18. July 7th, 2011 at 2:40 pm

    Erik said,

    Ok, nobody say a word about this anywhere, so next Thursday and we’ll all score. :)

  19. July 7th, 2011 at 2:43 pm

    E said,

    @ Max Jones manually clicked?

  20. July 7th, 2011 at 2:57 pm

    Max Jones said,

    I had loaded the page about an hour earlier & left it open. Then I came back when it was 3:25 & the page updated on it’s own when it was time. Then I simply clicked through.

  21. July 7th, 2011 at 6:42 pm

    Kevin said,

    @deltaGOLDflyer – there’s actually a triple AsiaMiles offer right now for these ORD flights – so you could end up with 46,758 – only a another RT shy of MarcoPolo Gold status.

    https://www.asiamiles.com/am/en/earn/airlines/promotion?refID=9909f1ec4e4d0310VgnVCM62000007d21c39RCRD

  22. July 7th, 2011 at 8:21 pm

    mike said,

    If you get elite status on asaimiles will this work for AA domestic lounge access and upgrades on AA or BA?

  23. July 7th, 2011 at 8:43 pm

    Howard said,

    @Kevin
    Those are most likely not club miles (CX’s EQM).

  24. July 8th, 2011 at 7:33 am

    Vitaly said,

    Click number 5028 :)

  25. July 9th, 2011 at 1:08 am

    David said,

    Wow Max!

  26. July 12th, 2011 at 1:50 am

    Gary said,

    I am #1…

    I posted the promotion detail at FT:

    http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/16700960-post97.html

    27. Add A Comment

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