smit0847

Hi all

I've been trying to book NRT-GUM-NRT on JL through one of their 1W partners (US Air) for weeks. I checked JLs nifty award seat calendar and the seats were available. I called up US and they could see the seats but were unable to ticket them as they said although they were available, JL would not 'release' them to US. They suggested putting it on hold and they would keep trying to request them from JL.

When the seats were put on hold they instantly disappeared from both my US held itinerary, and the JL award space. I was hoping that when the hold lapsed, the seats would return to the JL inventory and I could try again. This is what happened with other OW partner seats held as part of this itinerary, but the JL seats have vanished. I am fearful they will never return. I also put a JL NRT-CGK leg on hold (which US said they could ticket on the spot), this flight remained on my itinerary and when the hold expired it returned to the inventory pool.

Regardless of this I found the availability calendar most unusual for the month of September in that there doesn't seem to be any logic to the seats released. Ordinarily airlines will release a limited number of J seats, with many more Y seats but for weeks on end, there are no Y seats at all (and the occasional J seat). Some weeks there are more J seats than Y seats available. I fully understand why J seats would be limited/restricted but why would all Y redemptions be sold out 5 months in advance?! Even airlines like QF who are famous for releasing hardly any award seats (esp on premium routes) release loads of Y seats as the redemption cost is close to the rev fare.

So my questions to you please:

1. What do you think happened to my JL award seats that were placed on hold by US and vanished? Do you think they'll ever return? I've been checking everyday and I dont think someone else snapped them up.

2. How do JL release J and Y seats on routes like this? Is it normal for Y to be rarer than J 5 months out?

3. Do JL release anymore award seats ie at T-7 or T-3 like CX do? What happens with unsold seats? I'd obviously prefer J but happy with Y.

4. Is there anything I'm missing here? JL seems to operate very differently to other airlines within major alliances.

Thanks

exmike

from my limited searching, it appears the JL releases batches of award seats in a temporal sequence I have yet to deduce as the departure date.

In general I have found that AA is able to book any award space available on the JL website. There have been reports that US involuntarily "blocks" certain partners. May be an IT issue.

Keep checking daily I guess!

musashino22

Do you have any specific dates in mind? Currently I only see available seats in economy on the following dates in Sep: Dep 5,8,9,17,18,19,22,24,28,29,30 Arr 24, 25 only.

1. If there were some JGC/JMB/1W members already wait-listed on the specific date you requested, it could be assigned to them by the system after it is released back to the inventory.

2. Yes as there's a couple of national holidays in Sep, which is sometimes called Silver week in Japan. From what I know, the system will release seats gradually as it passes through certain threshold/check points were there are more unsold seats as T comes nearer. Priority will be given to those who have higher status and you can request to be wait-listed up to 2 flights per route.

3. AFAIK, yes but up to T-7 only for online, and less than this upto T-3 you have to call JAL Support. I am not sure if JAL would still entertain requests from partner airlines less than T-7. From my experience, there's always a long wait-list for popular routes such as Guam and Hawaii so as a strategy, I would select the dates were there are less than 10 people wait-listed to have a higher chance of getting award seats once the system releases them gradually. The system can keep your request to be wait-listed up to T-7 but I assume most people, like me, would just give up and decide to buy a ticket around T-14 and not rather wait up until T-7 just to find out you were not able to get an award seat. As for the unsold seats, I guess it will only be clearer/known after around T-7 after the system has cleared the online wait-list requests. Also, I believe JAL or any airline would keep at least a couple/few seats for those who would usually make last minute purchases.

For this past couple of years, I noticed that all of my JL flights (UK/US/SEA/TWN/HKG) are pretty full and it is more challenging to get award seats... Hopefully I satisfactorily answered your questions. Good Luck

Unimatrix One

On the NRT-GUM route, my experience is that there are often more J award seats than Y. My guess is that there is not much demand for paid J on this route, while Y can easily fill up with tour groups and other vacationers, so JL is tighter with Y awards than J.

smit0847

Even J is hard to come by though - there are weeks at a time where there is not a single Y or J seat. Would they not want to have these seats filled with redemptions rather than flying them empty? I'm guessing JL 767 J is not a particularly aspirational product that people will pay good money for!