How Much I’m Actually Saving with “Book Together and Save” with Cathay Pacific

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Cathay Pacific’s Japanese fares have been over the roof lately, and really, all we’ve done so far is live with it. Economy fares, especially, for peak season next Easter to Osaka, are up at HK$8,000 for a direct flight, and unfortunately ANA’s timings are pretty bad, which left us no choice but to go with the HK$8,000 fare.

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a man sitting in an airplane

Cathay Pacific Airbus A330-300 Economy Class

Business was well over HK$25,000 full fare and premium economy didn’t even run on one of the dates we had, so we were really considering resorting to economy. Dang…

Right before I was about to give up (at least there was a suite in the InterContinental Osaka that could fit the four of us for HK$6,700 per night that we were scrutinising as the best option), I decided to try my luck with Cathay packages.

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For 25% of a hotel room AND a business class seat, I got something half the price of a business class seat (without a hotel room) – WTF?

I decided to go on a scavenger hunt to find the best possible fare, and while I haven’t chosen my hotel yet, I’ve reduced my flight fare down to a business class seat for HK$4260, which was cheaper than any economy seat I’ve seen for those dates on the route.

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Price of the Swissotel Nankai Hotel Osaka for four business class seats and a rather large hotel room for five nights – four business class seats would cost HK$100,560

Technically, with my sister’s child fare of HK$3,200, my parents paid HK$15,980 for the flights alone (in comparison, an economy seat to Singapore costs roughly ~HK$4,000, and southeast Asia has more competition and thus cheaper fares around). That is 15.8% of what we could have paid for flights alone without a separate hotel room booking. Let me repeat that.

I saved ~85% of my mom’s cash finding the booking compared to what they would have spent on four business class seats, or ~50% of what they would have paid for four economy seats by booking with a package.

Holy crap, that’s a hell of a deal.

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Both my flights are scheduled in Cathay Pacific’s newest reverse herringbone business class seat, which means I saved money for a fully flat bed when I could have got (my favourite) economy seat for twice the cost. I’ve flown both versions of Cathay Pacific’s 777-300ER, which has the same backbones as the A330 seat, though I’ve heard it’s a bit wider – I’ll find out. While I wasn’t particularly impressed with the padding, I was pretty much happy with everything else, and am more than glad to spend eight more hours in the seat.

a seat with a seat belt and a pillow on it

Cathay Pacific Airbus A330-300 Business Class

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Cathay Pacific Boeing 777-300ER Business Class

Well, looking at the dark side, the travel agent we chose to hire selected four middle seats when all the window seats were open, so I had to go change them myself…sigh. Meanwhile, put comments down below to cheer Jason up as he’s had a fantastic sixteen-hour flight in the seats I will be spending more time in next April, and unfortunately his return upgrade didn’t clear.

Anyone else booking with these ridiculously cheap fares?

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