Thread: Three years into non reving and I made a rookie mistake

cx hkg/lax all oversold for the 5th,6th,7th and 8th

Hey guys. Sorry I meant to come here and reply before but I was so busy with Christmas coming up and preparing to leave for this trip. I meant to thank you for Letting me know there was a Hong Kong to LA flight, that got added in the last few years I guess and I didn’t even know it existed! For some reason on American Airlines regular website Hong Kong isn’t showing up on the where we fly map from either Dallas or LA so I would’ve had no idea if you guys hadn’t pointed it out to me! Well currently I am sitting in a diner in Hong Kong, one of my friends is trying to get home on D3 tonight and the gate agent told her that immigration might ask her to buy a ticket home if she comes in and out. Do you guys know if this is a thing? My ex got stuck in Hong Kong on a D3 for one night and left and came back to the airport and didn’t experience any issues. Also the flight loads are so full we’re looking at potential he being stuck here a few more days.

So she didn’t make it, but I knew that was pretty much certain. The non-rev list out of Hong Kong the next few days are out of control. She said there were only a few people at her gate when the plane left though, yet at least 20 D1s got rolled to the next flight. Also to make things worse, she talked to a D1 at the gate that’s been trying to get out since Friday. I guess that lady’s family thought on tonight but she stayed. My friend told me that airport security escorted them out of the gate area and back through customs. The D1s that had been trying to get on all weekend just said that they hadn’t done that to her on the previous days. I’m starting to get stressed out for my friends. I should be fine with work and everything, this is only affecting my plans I had to visit my cousin in Sydney. And it might break my wallet a little more than I anticipated, but in the end I’ll be fine. I will say this is probably the most dire situation I’ve been stuck in. I’ve actually never had to stay anywhere overnight yet, lol. Oh well. I wouldn’t trade it for anything but I’m feeling bad for my little D3s.

[QUOTE=JayAlexandra;83067]Hey guys. Sorry I meant to come here and reply before but I was so busy with Christmas coming up and preparing to leave for this trip. I meant to thank you for Letting me know there was a Hong Kong to LA flight, that got added in the last few years I guess and I didn’t even know it existed! For some reason on American Airlines regular website Hong Kong isn’t showing up on the where we fly map from either Dallas or LA so I would’ve had no idea if you guys hadn’t pointed it out to me! Well currently I am sitting in a diner in Hong Kong, one of my friends is trying to get home on D3 tonight and the gate agent told her that immigration might ask her to buy a ticket home if she comes in and out. Do you guys know if this is a thing? My ex got stuck in Hong Kong on a D3 for one night and left and came back to the airport and didn’t experience any issues. Also the flight loads are so full we’re looking at potential he being stuck here a few more days.[/QUO




My rule when non-revving goes bad is to get out of the city I am in. For your friend who needs to return to work, if you can get her to one of the European cities AA flys from, you can change her ticket and get her home. The only one that looked good for a D3 was MAN. Below is a flight tomorrow to LHR which has a lot of availability. I'd send her to LHR. If you're in a situation where you can wait and aren't bleeding money, then enjoy HKG, but after a few days of lodging and meals, you start to approach the cost of a ticket. She'd be a thru so she wouldn't have to pay the LHR taxes. Just tell her to hold onto her boarding pass to show to LHR. Hope this helps! BTW, if you haven't used it, the ITA matrix by google is a great site to check flights to anywhere and it allows you to widen the range of destinations 2000 miles. I tried to include all of your options but there were too many images.

One-way: Hong Kong to London, Mon, Jan 7
► Complete trips► Time bars

PRICE ▼

AIRLINE ▼

DEPART ▼

ARRIVE ▼

DURATION ▼

FROM/TO ▼

STOPS ▼

ADVISORY ▼

$800

Cathay Pacific + others 12:50 am 1:30 pm 20h 40m HKG to LHR DUB

Hey Wills. Thank you so so much for your reply! Now that I’m thinking of it I’ve definitely looked at that ITA back in the day before I non reved. So you’re saying she would buy a ticket to LHR and then fly AA non rev back home? Well as I was writing this post my friend that’s stressed out about work (and didn’t get on the first try out to LAX tonight) just bought a ticket on United from HKG-ORD-DEN. Honestly she has the money to do it, while it’s unexpected and a bit of a setback she had the cash on hand and her credit cards are mostly clear, so she’ll be fine. Also she got premium econ on the way over here so all things considered she saved a lot on that experience. Also I’m just glad the stress of figuring things out for her is off my mind. Now I just have to worry about my other D3 that is trying to get back to PHX. And me, since things are looking rough for D1s out of here (but I wouldn’t use a D1 til my D3 is gone anyway). Also I have another week off and a visa to mainland China with a friend that teaches English in Guangzhou, as well as my friend that teaches in Tokyo. So I could always go stay with either of them if I’m tight on cash (also flights out of Tokyo back to US are still rough but looking slightly better than this HK mess).

Well, I’m headed off to bed but I will certainly be back with an update lol. I’ll be repeating the non rev prayer tonight in my dreams and tomorrow too! Thank heavens for this board haha.

Yeah I already knew it had potential to be like this, and I did warn my friends but they wanted to go through with it anyway since we had already purchased airfare on Hong Kong express from Tokyo to HK. They had never been in this situation before so swallowing the airfare on that wasn’t appealing to them. Usually I’ve been able to get myself out on a D1 also so I wasn’t imagining how bad it could get either. I’m not really crying about it over here, I know I’ll be fine in the end. I mostly came to update my post because my friend was freaked out about immigration escorting her back through customs. That probably also kind of drove her to buy the airfare, but she also takes her work really seriously and while they probably would’ve given her leeway on it and she didn’t even want to ask. Now it’s just me and my other D at three and we’re going to make moves in the next two days and maybe fly back to Narita. Those flights are overbooked to but there’s a lot less non-revs an a lot more options in on Monday there’s a lot of seats open to Las Vegas.

Everything is a learning experience in this definitely is another one!