I made a newbie mistake. I'd been planning to wait and try to get two J ANA seats T-14 in September/October as I don't need much lead time and my dates are flexible. Then I got a seats.aero notification that I could book two JAL J tickets on QR at a good rate so decided to jump on that right away. In retrospect, I should have done more research. I checked and saw the tickets were available on the AA site. Then I went to the QR site- the seats.aero notice said they were bookable on QR, though I now realize I should have checked the BA site. I transferred Amex points to QR Avios and thought I was booking two tickets on the QR site, but was actually just sending in a request (as I've since leaned, you have to call QR to actually book the seats). I don't know if these were phantom seats or if I lost them because I didn't call until almost 48 hours after making what I thought was the booking (which was when I learned you can only book over the phone).
Question 1: Were these likely phantom seats, as seats.aero told me was likely when I asked them? Or is it likely they were available but I just made the mistake of not calling immediately?
In any case, now I'm now stuck with a bunch of QR Avios. My goal is still to find two J seats on any airline from the west coast to Japan in Sept./Oct. I've read the best way to do this is searching the BA site (or actually starting with the AA site to identify dates, then moving to BA to verify and book. I've also read to keep an eye on AS as they may list JAL award tickets that you can't see on AA or BA, but are bookable on BA with a phone call.
My other question is if the AA site is showing availability on AA (as a saver award or whatever they're called) or on JAL and they don't show up on the BA site, does that mean they're not available with Avios? Or should I call BA? Same question wth AS: if a JAL or AA flight shows up on AS but not on BA, should I call BA or just assume it's not available? Are there any other things I should be doing that could lead me to finding two J awards from the west coast to Japan with Avios in Sept./Oct.?
Thanks for any help. And please let me know if there's a more appropriate place to post this.