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Trip Introduction: New York, USA via Cathay Pacific First Class

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Trip Planning:

Ever since MrsWT73 saw her first television episode of Sex in the City, she had her sights set on a visit to New York. Year after year passed and the trip seemed to elude us while we pursued more exotic travels and destinations. These included themed trips to Abu Dhabi and The United Arab Emirates Empty Quarter, made popular to some by the feature length movie Sex and the City 2.

After our second RTW, we decided on a more low key local vacation. We decided to take advantage of Vancouver’s location as one of the six Cathay Pacific North American gateway cities (San Francisco, Los Angeles, Newark, Chicago and Toronto are the other ones) and fly the fifth freedom flight between Vancouver and New York aboard the only real trans-continental first class flight in North America: Cathay Pacific First.

Booking:

The trip was booked in close with 65,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles per person with departure at T-8 days out. First class reward availability from Vancouver was excellent, with two First Class seats available almost twice a week with one seat available almost every day per week at about 14 days prior to departure.

For the return, I was unable to find two First Seats and had to settle for 1 First Seat and 1 in Business at about 14 days out. I checked the reward availability almost 3 times per day until the seats opened up and at T-7 less one hour exactly, switched the second ticket from business to first.

Taxes, fees and fuel surcharges came to $55.92 per ticket, in addition to the 65,000 AAdvantage miles per passenger. In addition, there was a $75 AAdvantage reward processing fee for booking within 21 days of departure. This fee was reduced to $25 for MrsWT73 who completed a targeted promotion for AA Gold 2014 status last year.

The routing ended up being simply:

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