Award Ticket Downgrade - What to Do?

Back in December, I was able to book both of us in Cathay Pacific first class from Tokyo (NRT) to Hong Kong.  I used Alaksa Mileage Plan miles to book each ticket for 27,500 miles.  A great deal considering this is a five hour flight on a premium route on one of my favorite first class products.

Unfortunately, Cathay Pacific isn't doing great financially and they've been cutting first class (frequencies and service on board).  I received an email from Alaska a couple weeks ago letting me know that my first class flight had been downgraded to business class in a regionally configured aircraft.  While that isn't the end of the world, the whole point of flying out of Narita (90 min bus ride) vs. Haneda (20-25 min taxi) was to fly Cathay in first.

I used the British Airways website to check Oneworld availability and on the day we're looking to fly, there really only are a few options.  I called Alaska to see what they could do for me and it was either keep the ticket or refund the miles and taxes and figure it out from there.

I opted for the latter option and am going to wait it out a bit to see if anything opens up.  At this point, my options are direct flights in business class on JAL or Cathay.  Or we could get exotic and book a paid flight on Hong Kong Airlines (haven't flown them but hear the business class product is decent) for around $650 each.  Or we could get really nuts and book Thai Airways first class all the way from Tokyo to Bangkok to Hong Kong with a stop at the first class spa for 60,000 United miles each.  That is a bit of a crazy routing (would take an extra 5-6 hours) but would be a lot of fun.  Emily still needs some convincing to pull the trigger on that one.

Will keep you all posted as we figure it out.