I am so glad I found this thread! I was freaking out because my tickets that were booked separately all now say on hold too, even though I have ticket numbers for all of them. I was able to check my reservation on the JAL site and it says on hold. The holding period is the date of my flight for 1 ticket and another ticket is the day before the flight. I could've sworn it said ticketed when I first booked it. I was able to get a copy of my receipt on the JAL site under my reservations and all of my tickets have a ticket number. I still see my same seat assignments too.

I booked these tickets through Alaska. TPJ does it work the same way with what you were saying above with Alaska transferring the ticket number to JAL?

What do you guys think is the cause of this? Is this something that is common?

I am going to give JAL a call too for some peace of mind.