Originally Posted by
Unimatrix One
Do you have oneworld Emerald status? If not, you won't be able to get 1AC or 2AC as these rows contain blocked seats. In fact, the only window pair available for non Emeralds is 2HK. JAL is really obnoxious about blocking huge numbers of seats for only the highest tier members. So for me, for example, despite being a 20-year JGC member, LSP 4 stars, and current JMB Sapphire, there are large blocs of seats that I cannot access. It is super irritating.
Thanks, everyone thus far, for the replies. Yes, I'm OW Emerald (AA EP). When selecting seats, I ended up figuring out that JAL is blocking seats for the highest tier flyers. So yeah, I can totally see what you're talking about in terms of JAL blocking out seats for elite status flyers. For example, the system will let me select 1A (or 1C) for myself, but my travel companion who is not Emerald status but on the same record locator, can't get 1C next to me if I select 1A for myself, but my travel companion can get 1G. So I went ahead and booked 1A/1G. I noticed the same issue for J-Class flights and regular economy flights on JAL (eg, on JAL's 73H plane, I can get seat 15A/C that has the aisle seat blocked but can't select the other seat for my travel companion for us to sit together). So although it's the same record locator for two people, it seems that I can get the better seats for myself, but I can't select the seat next to me for my travel companion. I'm hoping at the airport, they'll be able to seat us together (I went ahead and selected the seat I wanted, and the seat next to me is still open). If anyone thinks I can lock in the seats together by calling JAL (vs. waiting until check in at the airport), I'll of course do that. Haven't flown JAL with a travel companion to know what they're willing to do about seat assignments when one of the 2 travelers on the same record locator doesn't have any status and the other has Emerald. (Have only flown JAL previously by myself.)