Originally Posted by
flatlander
As a test itinerary, I used JNB-LHR-JFK-SYD-HKG-JNB.
There exists the QF108 flight and on, say, 13 July 2014 ExpertFlyer shows the inventory as:
QF108: J9 C9 D9 I8 U0 W9 R9 T9 Z0 Y9 B9 H9 K9 M6 L9 V5 S0 N0 Q0 O0 G0 X0 E0
AA (QF) 7366: J7 D7 I7 Y7 B7 H7 K7 M7 V7 L7 S0 N0 Q0 O0
So it looks like we have the required D inventory for both flight codes. The xONEx tool only offers the AA7366 code but claims business class is not available so books me into L. If I tried later in the year then I can get business class, but the codeshare's inventory is still D7.
Does anyone have suggestions why this might be?
It is a common misperception that availability is standard. It is not. Airlines vary availability by all sorts of factors including fare basis (eg may be available for certain "D" fares but not others), point of sale (eg may be available for fares ex USA but not ex Australia), married segment logic (eg may be available for O&D but not with connecting flights or vice versa and may be available only for certain connecting flights and not others).