I'm looking for advice on how to secure the 2 business class seats for Jan 2022 on a popular route to South Africa
Any advice is appreciated,
What is the best tactic for aiming for the 2 business class tickets which are released 355 days out? - I understand it is phoning the call centre.
Is it phoning the US call center or Japan?
Is the relevant timing GMT (not BST or something like that)?
How long before midnight (at the international date line?) should I try to call?
Is it awkward? Are agents used to this sort of thing? I imagine I might be asking them to refresh a few times.
Anything specific I should ask for? - I.e. that they immediately reserve the tickets?
I phoned the US Call centre, via Skype. As we were in GMT at the time, I called just before midnight GMT.
Make sure you select the correct option. It was not obvious to me the first time and I ended up in a longer queue that didnt take me directly to the Newcastle based team that deal with this type of query. (The correct option says "if your booking was made with Avios", but the subsequent recorded message then threw me and I redialled using a different option)
3 Data points for calling: I called at 23:30 on Black Friday and was answered at 00:16 - this is the occasion I selected the wrong option)
I called at 23:48 on a Monday evening and was answered within 5 minutes. (modified my outbound successfully)
I called at 23:43 the following Monday and wasnt answered until 00:02 and lost my inbound option. (took economy instead)
So, you can see there is no guaranteed consistency of advising best time to call - I would suggest 23:40 or earlier.
With regards to if the calls were awkward? The team at Newcastle deal with this a lot, and the second agent asked "I guess you are calling to add your inbound to the booking", so I wouldnt worry about that!
Hope this helps, although I only had partial success, I hope the detail is of use.