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Old Mar 5, 2007, 1:29 am
  #6  
AlexS
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: NYC (Formerly Tokyo)
Posts: 231
I'm back from SFO, and wow is this ever a bizarre upgrade policy. I asked our travel agency for more details about it, and they sent me a three page PDF in Japanese which I was able to read through with a lot of help from translator software, and asking my coworkers.

I don't know understand all the details, but we have this arrangement with JAL, ANA, and NW for full fare and I think also discounted tickets. If there is an available business class seat between 10 and 3 days before departure we get it.

If for whatever reason, there is no seat available 3 days before the flight, and then one suddenly opens up later, we unfortunately can't get it. Under no condition can the upgrade be processed at the airport, and you can't select a seat before you get to the airport.

I don't remember the exact details for my flights, but I was watching the availability on Expert Flyer and my reservation on JAL's site before the flight. I was traveling with two other people, and I believe EF was showing J4 for our outbound flight 10 days before departure. On day 10 (actually it may have been day 8 or 9), I checked my reservation on JAL's site, and saw that I had been moved to J (or actually ekusekutibu kurasu). After I saw this, I went and checked EF, and it showed J as being zeroed out for that flight--they seemed to have cleared all these upgrades even though it left them with no availability. Unfortunately, on the return there was no J availability at all (from when the tickets were booked about 4 weeks in advance), and we didn't get bumped up.

Any thoughts on this? Parts of the policy make sense to me, but zeroing out J a week before the flight, and then not processing any upgrades at the airport even if there are seats available seems so strange?

Alex
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