Originally Posted by
mooreva
I have been trying for weeks to get an idea of reward availability from TPA - FCO, next November. Preferably F but not less than Businesss. Recently I have been seeinglittle availability (other than on BA) for two people, but when I put in "1", the availability on AA comes up both F and Business.
My question: Am I better off (when the 331 day comes up), booking on the first availabile booking for 2 in business or book for 1 in F and hope that another F becomes available in a week or two. These seats appear to be available for at least a couple of weeks after the 331 day mark. And would I have to pay a charge if I did the latter and then have to go down to Business?
Unless you are EXP, you would have to pay a change fee to downgrade from F to J. However, as of now, you can upgrade from J to F for no fee.
If it were me and I needed two seats in the same cabin, I would book 2 seats in J and upgrade for free if 2 seats become available in F. Note that there aren't that many F transatlantic seats on AA metal to begin with (LHR, FRA and occasionally MAD and MXP are the only stations I know of with 3-cabin 777s). This December LHR is losing the 77W on two JFK/LHR frequencies, and while the refurb of the 772s is not really going anywhere at the moment, the number of F seats is only going down in the future.