Great questions and thanks for the opportunity to explain this in more detail. Here are the sequence of events.

Earlier this year in February 2023 I booked a flight in December 2023 on JAL in First Class LAX-HND for 70K Alaska miles.

At some point over the summer I noticed the aircraft had been downgraded to a 787 without First Class. There was likely a notification of a schedule or itinerary change in the app or the website or checking the flight status I noticed the downgrade. At this point I didn't touch the ticket. I didn't accept any changes. And I didn't call Alaska as I had a backup plan which consisted of another flight for the same month I had booked in First on JAL JFK-HND at the time hoping maybe to get on the new A350s.

In mid-September I received an email from Alaska which showed that it had been re-ticketed in business class. At this point I have not personally accepted the downgrade or the changes and still have not called Alaska.

Yesterday when taking a look at the flight booking in the Alaska app I noticed that it was now being operated by the 777 again. At first I thought it was just a refresh issue showing the original booking which was on a 777. But sure enough I quickly confirmed in google flights and on the JAL website that the 777 is operating LAX-HND again starting Dec 5th. I had been checking every couple of weeks to see if there were any aircraft changes in google flights on the US F routes to TYO so this is a recent change of equipment for this route.

I called Alaska yesterday the first time about this ticket and asked for my seat in first class back. There was no first award availability on this date. So they opened up a ticket with the backend team that works with JAL to have a first class award seat opened up. Which is what I had originally booked and confirmed and ticketed back in February. They said this can take up to 5 business days for them to process.

With the date of travel quickly approaching in a few weeks I checked if there are any first class award seats open up on this route in December on other days. And as luck would have it there was one open seat the entire month and it was on the next day. So I called Alaska back again and said rather than waiting 5 business days for a seat to be opened up on the same date as my original ticket. Could they change the date of the flight to the next day which had an award seat open in F. The Alaska agent was able to do this and there was no additional miles required to change the date to another date that had a first class seat open. (New bookings LAX-HND will price out at 85K while I had booked this at 70K before the change in pricing).

Hopefully this helps others who might find themselves in a situation where they are downgraded from First with JAL.

Definitely keep an eye on your booking after making any changes like this. It was kind of crazy a couple hours after I had everything confirmed in First on the next day everything reverted back to the previous day back in business class (now fare class J!) and the system issued yet another ticket number and email confirmation. Another call into Alaska and they fixed it again to the next day and a seat in First and it seems to be holding this time so far.

Further to one of your questions - this ticket was never re-issued by me and I never received a 10K refund in miles for the downgrade. Although it appears the system automatically reissued the ticket in September (received an email with a new ticket #) in business class without my permission and no miles were credited back. In other words I left the original F ticket as is and open that was now showing business class and wait listed for First. The waitlisted for First part may have been new as of yesterday as I don't recall seeing that before.