Hong Kong is giving out 500,000 free plane tickets. I tried to get one as a Singapore resident and ended up stuck in a waiting room behind 50,000 people.

• Hong Kong's campaign to give out 500,000 free airline tickets to the city is proving very popular.
• Thailand and Singapore residents snapped up 29,900 Cathay Pacific round-trip tickets on Wednesday and Thursday.
• The giveaway ended within 45 minutes on both days due to overwhelming response.

Hong Kong is giving out half a million free flights to the city — and the campaign is so popular that Cathay Pacific had to park people in a virtual waiting room before they could even enter the giveaway.

The promotion is part of the "Hello Hong Kong" campaign launched in February to entice visitors back to the city after three years of COVID-19 isolation battered its economy.

Sponsored by Hong Kong's airport authority, the giveaway involves the distribution of 500,000 airline tickets via three of the city's carriers: Cathay Pacific, Hong Kong Airlines, and Hong Kong Express. It started on March 1 in the Southeast Asian markets and is slated to later move onto other markets, such as mainland China and Northeast Asia.

Tourism was a key pillar of Hong Kong's economy before the pandemic, and it appears the city is still a draw. Demand for the free airline tickets was so hot that flag carrier Cathay Pacific ended its giveaway for all 17,400 tickets allocated for Thailand residents in about 45 minutes on Wednesday, according to the South China Morning Post.

I tried for a free ticket and ended up stuck in a waiting room

On Thursday, I experienced the ticket rush myself. Cathay Pacific said it had 12,500 free tickets that it would be giving to Singapore residents from March 2 to March 8, so I decided to try my luck.

Cathay Pacific's website was slow even before the promotion started, with the carrier parking those entering the site into a virtual waiting room before they could click in to the main page. While the wait was under a minute long about half an hour before the giveaway started, it jumped to 16 minutes just before the sign-up page opened at noon.

A minute after the giveaway started, the webpage went down, with a message saying it was under "system maintenance." I managed to get back into the waiting room after a few minutes, only to be told there were over 50,000 people ahead of me — putting my estimated wait time at over an hour.

I never made it into the application page.

The page for the waiting room refreshed itself at 12:43 p.m. and showed me that all the tickets had been given out well ahead of the airline's deadline next Wednesday — but the airline did thank me for my patience and participation.

Some Singapore residents who encountered technical issues on Cathay Pacific's giveaway webpage took to the airline's Facebook page to complain — but at least they didn't wait three-and-a-half hours to register for the campaign, which was what one Bangkok resident named Ronnakrit Rojyindeelert experienced, the SCMP reported. Winners will announced from March 17 to April 5.

Cathay Pacific told Insider that it is "very encouraged by the enthusiastic response" from those who registered for the giveaway.

People still have a change to snag free tickets

The hot demand wasn't exclusive to Cathay Pacific flights.

Those waiting to snag free tickets from Hong Kong Airlines also had to wait over two hours just to get into the website on Thursday, according to a message I saw on the airline's site. It started giving out tickets to residents of the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam on Wednesday. The carrier has not disclosed how many tickets it's giving out to each country, per Bloomberg.

Cathay Pacific said its giveaway to Southeast Asian residents will end on March 24. The giveaway will roll out progressively to residents from other Southeast Asian countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Those interested need to apply for a free Cathay Pacific membership on its website and answer three quiz questions about Cathay Pacific correctly, according to SCMP.

Budget carrier Hong Kong Express is slated to join the campaign later, but it hasn't released details.

Hong Kong Airlines did not immediately respond to Insider's requests for comment.