Hong Kong’s free Cathay Pacific tickets from Seoul to city snapped up quickly as 130,000 people queue for 10,602 giveaways
- Free airline tickets offered to registered Cathay members over 19 years old
- Long queues and wait times leave many participants feeling frustrated as campaign ends in less than half an hour
The city’s flagship carrier started offering free return tickets from Seoul to Hong Kong on a first-come, first-served basis from noon on Tuesday until May 22. The giveaway ended in less than half an hour.
To qualify, participants had to be at least 19 years old and registered Cathay members.
The promotional drive is part of a 700,000-ticket giveaway handled by local airlines under the government’s “Hello Hong Kong” campaign. The city aims to lure more than 1.5 million visitors after three years of Covid-19 pandemic travel restrictions.
But in the first two minutes of the campaign on Tuesday, more than 135,000 people queued on the airline’s website, with a waiting time of more than an hour. In under 25 minutes, the company announced all 10,602 free tickets had been awarded.
Miseong Lee, a 32-year-old clerk from Seoul, said she thought it would be easy to win a free trip as she had not realised more than 130,000 people were hoping to secure tickets.
“I expected the process to be easy so I sat in front of my computer at 11am and waited for the event to start at noon,” Lee said. “But I was not able to log in to the website at 12pm. I gave up eventually after a few attempts.”
