To emphasise the degradation even more: when you arrived in the 80's, the company provided a 'housing loan", which covered your down payment and legal fees on a house (yes, house...2100' sq ft and a garden). The monthly allowance was enough to repay both the mortgage and housing loan. In other words, you could buy a house with nothing out of pocket. And do it over and over again. Now, you can't even get a hotel room when you arrive in HK to join the company, and the hkpa "allowance" (cough) is not enough to afford the most miserable of apartments. Shows you how much CX now thinks of their crews.