Re: Housing etc
Ok, this is a mixture of opinion and facts, but it's all coming from someone living what you all seem to want to aspire to and are realities for most living here on these new terms. Take from it what you want.
If you are a westerner you will have a massive shock finding anything liveable for the amount they are offering as a package, all the way up the ladder.
Basically, for the absolute bare minimum accommodation most young, single professionals would want to live in in HK it's going to cost much, much more than this (fully taxable) allowance, and probably most of your salary as well. Somewhere local, and as cheap and as dull as it gets, like Tung Chung you're looking at 15k upwards for a shoebox for the privilege or breathing in some of the ****tiest air on the planet. DB, Gold Coast etc, a little more. The closer to town you get it goes up exponentially. Fancy living in town in an apartment where you can't touch both walls with your outstretched arms? Well you can't, almost certainly, ever. Unless you fancy sharing with two or three buddies, which I assure you gets very tiring very quickly, when you move your wives over etc (which you will!)
Realistically, you are spending <50% of your GROSS (dont forget 30% tax first year either... struggling yet?) every month filling someone elses pockets, just to live in a place you can stomach, so forget about ever buying a place here that you would ever actually want to live in. Look at typical buying prices and mortgage rates etc and do the sums. And be honest with yourself; factor in things like kids and a wife eventually, and the bigger place you will need. It's all well and good saying "Well i'll plan to save xx here and then I'll save xxx here and have xxxxx by JFO etc". Quite practically, if you have no other savings, rich parents etc you will never be able to do this. Hong Kong is an incredibly expensive place and living like a student, in a small apartment, I just about manage to save a few thousand HK$ a month. Is this worth moving away from your friends, family and all you hold dear for? Throw in a useless P2X rating and the privilege of babysitting the a/p for 8 hours at a time in the middle of the night over the north pole for 4 years? Close yet?
The reality is that as your wages go up, the chances are that your overall living costs ( rent, insurance, electricity rates etc) and your family commitments will too, at a faster rate. For example, Cathay will tell you that they pay upto 90% of your school fees, but they won't tell you that some schools, clubs etc require things like debentures (Google them), which they won't cover, and you won't be able to afford to. They also won't say it's practically impossible these days getting your kids into a school where you actually want them to go, when you want them to go. Say the only school you can get them into happens to be in, say, Clearwater Bay, but you live in DB. And you can't afford to live in Clearwater Bay. Or drive a car because you live in DB. Do you start to see the endless problems you will encounter living here without any money in your pocket?
To be completely honest the only guys I know that are truly happy here on local terms fall into one of three categories; Those with strong family ties to Hong Kong/Cathay; those who, for whatever reason, are money no object; and those who just can't wait to tell everybody they know they fly for CX and put pictures of "The Office " on Facebook. Everybody else is passing through, myself included. It is in no way a career airline under these terms. It would be literally financial suicide to do so. There are many good things about working, and especially starting your career here. I won't deny that. But the simple truth is that the longer you are here the more you will resent the deal you took because you are getting more and more short changed by the day and with the recent rewriting of contracts to many different groups of cadets, I am not of the opinion that this will feeling improve any time soon. I made the decision to come here. I am still not exactly sure whether it was the right one and I do accept that nobody forced me to sign the contract. However, if I had a crystal ball, or researched it more thoroughly you could argue, then I probably wouldn't have. But who knows?
If you have very few other options available to you then by all means have a look and make your own mind up but what I present to you are the realities a lot of guys are facing. They are disillusioned with life in HK, are unhappy and looking elsewhere, especially those with decent, DESO'esque hours. If you have options, especially at home, then I would strongly urge you to to stay, because, based on all of the above, why do you really want to come here?
Buyer beware!