Smooth take-off for Cathay Pacific’s free ticket drive aimed at Hong Kong and Greater Bay Area residents, with 27,000 round trips up for grabs

Registration process mostly smooth, but some users complain of being unable to find link to fill in form
Move is part of government’s 700,000-ticket bonanza under ‘Hello Hong Kong’ campaign

Hong Kong reopens: life after quarantine

Rachel Yeo

Published: 12:26pm, 24 Apr 2023

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Hong Kong flagship carrier Cathay Pacific Airways on Monday morning rolled out more than 27,000 tickets to 26 countries, available to city residents and those in the Greater Bay Area.

The online process to qualify for the round-trip, economy-class tickets was mostly smooth, but some users reported difficulties in finding a link for the giveaway form, which launched at 10am.

The promotional drive is part of a 700,000-ticket lucky draw handled by local airlines under the government’s “Hello Hong Kong” campaign. The city is seeking to lure visitors back after being closed off from the world for three years amid tough pandemic curbs.

Hello Hong Kong: how do I get free airline tickets and what else is on offer?

In the latest round, hopefuls can choose 26 countries offering 46 destination cities, including Malaysia, the United States and Australia. To enter the giveaway, participants must be Cathay Pacific members. They then need to fill in a form by providing their name and email address before choosing one preferred destination.

While there are no restrictions on nationality, the website is only available in simplified Chinese. Applicants are reminded to write their names in pinyin – spelling in Mandarin – based on their travel documents. The phone number prefix is, by default, mainland China’s “+86” in the registration process.

The current round will end on April 30 and winners will be notified by email on May 3. Users cannot change the destination city of the free ticket issued to them, which will be selected randomly from the countries they have picked.

“This particular campaign phase is designed to encourage people from the mainland to visit Hong Kong, and also to travel overseas via the Hong Kong aviation hub,” the carrier said, without addressing queries on why the campaign website was not available in English or traditional Chinese.

The ‘Hello Hong Kong’ campaign hopes to reinvigorate the city’s beleaguered tourism sector. Photo: Sam Tsang

Earlier ticket rounds were launched to attract visitors from Southeast Asian countries, including Singapore and Thailand, to Hong Kong.

But the giveaway process this time was different from past rounds, as previously Southeast Asian residents had to answer a series of multiple-choice questions to take part.

According to the Post’s observation on Monday, there was a short waiting time of one minute to enter the airline’s website at 10am. Some users were able to find the form and enter the giveaway easily within minutes.

But others had difficulties navigating to the online form, as they were only redirected to a sign-up page without a link.

Hong Kong’s airline ticket giveaway: chaos, long waits for Southeast Asian hopefuls

Among those who took part in the giveaway was American and Hong Kong permanent resident George Warren, a 33-year-old freelance cybersecurity contractor.

As the campaign page was only available in Chinese, Warren had to translate the page into English to enter.

“It was smooth except for translating the page into English, but I have received no [email or SMS] confirmation so far,” he said. Others also said they had not received confirmation.

Warren picked Canada as his country of choice, so he could visit his brother, who lives in Toronto.

Users cannot choose a destination city in their country of choice. Warren said: “Cathay only flies to Vancouver or Toronto. If I get [to] Vancouver, I can get a cheap flight to Toronto.”

Human resources manager Keung Fung also said the system ran smoothly, although he became confused when trying to access the webpage.

“The Cathay Pacific official website said I had to wait for four to five minutes, but I didn’t know I had to click on a separate hyperlink to access the lucky draw,” he said. “After I opened the link, I just had to wait around 20 seconds. I think many people must have got stuck on the previous step.”

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Fung picked the United Kingdom as his destination of choice because he was planning to visit Europe and Britain to see his friends and go sightseeing.

“I normally have no luck in lotteries, though I enjoyed taking part in the draw,” Fung said. “But in the previous round of ticket giveaways, quite a number of my friends won. So I feel my odds aren’t that bad this time.”

Authorities announced earlier that 80,000 tickets would be given to Hong Kong residents in July and the same number to visitors from the Greater Bay Area from April.

The bay area is Beijing’s ambitious plan to integrate Hong Kong, Macau and nine southern mainland cities into an economic powerhouse rivalling Silicon Valley.

Additional reporting by Ezra Cheung