Originally Posted by
Happy
If your planned trip is 2 to 3 months out, just keep checking every other day AFTER JL system overnight update at Japan Time. The availability does change and to the better. The other advantage is AA still allows free date and routing change as long as the O/D remain the same for us below EXP.
Following your advice, I was able to find award space for LGA-ORD-NRT-PEK, though with the ORD-NRT and NRT-PEK segments showing up only separately. The agent was able to book LGA-ORD-NRT, but told me NRT-PEK was "not confirming". It appears that the NRT-PEK space is showing up on BA and AS but not QF. Perhaps phantom space? She ended up placing LGA-ORD-NRT on hold for now.
A few questions:
1. For purposes of determining O/D, do co-terminals count? If I have to depart from JFK instead of LGA, will I have to redeposit the miles?
2. If I want to change say the NRT-PEK segment but not the LGA-ORD-NRT segments, is my current seat on LGA-ORD-NRT sufficient, or does there need to be availability still on that route? (For example if reticketing involves releasing all of my seats then obtaining them again, the seats may disappear and not go directly back into inventory.)
3. Is "not confirming" inventory a common phenomenon? Maybe I should just HUCA and hope the next agent makes it work.
My plan is to search around these next few days for the NRT-PEK segment and get something confirmed, even if it's an undesirable routing (for example, LGA-ORD-NRT-HKG-PEK barely qualifies under maximum permitted mileage). Then I can always come back and change it later. The key is to grab the ORD-NRT space for good.
Thank you all for the good advice!