Flying Cathay Pacific (CX) as a Code-share
Cathay Pacific is one of my favorite airlines for flying to Asia. My first flight on Cathay Pacific was a flight from JFK-HKG in economy. I have since flown on Cathay Pacific and its sister airline Dragonair a number of times for both long haul and regional trips. Some were code-share flights; I ended up having to figure out how to get my seat assignments for my CX flights.
How To Select Your Seats
The key is to get your CX’s booking reference number. To get this number, you can:
- Call your booking airline and ask for your Cathay Pacific’s booking reservation number. Most agents can get this info for you quickly. You can then go to Cathay Pacific’s website to lookup the reservation and select your seats.
- If you have trouble with the Cathay Pacific’s website, you can also call Cathay Pacific to request your seats directly. Representatives can look up your reservation by name and flight details. However, they’d be able to pull it more quickly if you give them the CX’s reservation number.
Options for Non-CX flights
There are external sites that allows you to check on your flights, which can be helpful if you book on a partner flight. You can use sites like checkmytrip.com (Amadeus CRS) to retrieve information about your reservation, assuming the airline that you book uses the same system. For example, I had a code-share on Japan Airline (JAL) booked through British Airways (BA) earlier this year. I went to checkmytrip.com, plugged in my BA’s PNR and was able to get my JAL’s PNR. I was then able to pull up my reservation on JAL’s website and choose my seats!
Unfortunately, this option does not work on Cathay partnered flights booked through American Airlines. Even though both carriers are part of the Oneworld alliance, AA uses the Sabre CRS. While there are equivalent sites for Sabre (e.g. virtuallythere.com), I have not used it personally to see if it works for looking up CX’s PNR. I tend to just call AA and request my CX reservation number.
Plan Ahead
Ideally, things would be easier if the PNR on the code-share flight is provided on the original reservation, or if the same PNR is used across the same systems. However, airline systems — especially when airlines use different systems — can be quite complex. So, if you are particular about your seat preference, it’s a good idea to plan ahead and get your seat assignments in well before your trip.
If you have other tips or advice on how to look up partner airline’s PNR number, or a recent experience with choosing seats on a code-share flight, please share in the comments below.
I’m new to this codeshare thing, but I do noticed whenever I fly with Cathay Pacific, there are always American Airline flyers who fly with us. Does that mean I can order through AA (which is always cheaper than Cathay Pacific) to fly back to Hong Kong and most likely I’ll get to fly in a Cathay Pacific airplane anyways?
Shorter version of my question: Can I buy cheap on AA and fly on CP’s flights?’
Thanks.
Yes, that’s possible. If you can find a cheaper fare on AA than CX. I can’t say I usually see fares on AA that’s cheaper than CX. They are usually roughly equivalent, but maybe you have better luck? FWIW, on the AA booking site, a flight not operated by AA will be specified, i.e. “Operated by Cathay Pacific Airways” or Japan Airlines, or whatever the operating airline it is. If the prices are roughly equal and you have your heart set of flying CX, I would just book directly with the operating airline. Otherwise, if there is a flight change… Read more »
I booked flights on CX using AA miles. The in bound was in economy class and outbound was in Business Class.
I was able to reserve the Business Class seats but they would not allow me to choose the Economy Class seats.
It said: “This flight sector does not allow seat request in advance.”
From CX’s website: https://www.cathaypacific.com/cx/en_US/about-us/contact-us/faqs/manage-booking/seat-requests.html “Who is eligible to request a seat?” Members of The Marco Polo Club (Silver tier or above) and oneworld Ruby tier members or above All First and Business Class passengers. Customers holding tickets on eligible fare types – Y, B, H, K, L, M, V, W, R, E, T” Is your economy ticket fare class in the eligible fare type list? If not, you can try giving AA or CX a call to see if they could request a seat for you. I have a vague recollection that you may not be able to request a… Read more »
Thanks for this post. BA said seat selection was only possible on Cathay Pacific leg at check-in. I phoned – got the CX reservation number – selected seats and meals on the Cathay Pacific website with no probs!
Glad to hear! I do the same as well. Since I’m usually traveling with family and these CX flights are usually long haul flights, I prefer to select my seats ahead of time whenever possible. Thanks for reading!