Hong Kong flagship carrier’s ticket giveaway for return trips from Philippines attracts strong interest, including from domestic helpers, frequent fliers

More than 20,000 free tickets offered by Hong Kong’s flagship carrier for round trips from the Philippines to the city have attracted tens of thousands of prospective travellers including domestic helpers and frequent flyers, leaving the airline’s website congested once again after its latest round of giveaways.

Cathay Pacific Airway’s “World of Winners” campaign, which began on Wednesday, will hand out 80,000 free round-trip tickets to people in Southeast Asian countries this month, with 20,400 being offered to visitors from the Philippines.

As the latest round of the campaign began at 12pm on Friday, there were about 1,500 people in the online queue and the wait time amounted to 20 minutes, a Post check found. The website also crashed at one point.

At 1.30pm, the site was still accepting registrants as more than 50,000 people waited in line. The number of hopefuls was fewer than on Thursday, when more than 80,000 people at one point tried to get tickets for return trips from Singapore, a drive that ended within 45 minutes of its launch.

Lia Bonawan, a 44-year-old domestic helper in Hong Kong, was among the hopefuls trying to land a ticket for a family reunion.

“I hope to go back to the Philippines to see my daughter, and bring her to [Hong Kong] for a trip,” she said. “It would be great if at least one of us can get the tickets.”