I've encountered the same problem when looking at JL availability on the AS site, and it's extremely frustrating.

That approach is probably the best. When I booked my CX award for earlier this year, I called at T-330 to secure space on the first leg, then called back in a few days later for the flight home after my stopover. Shouldn't prove to be an issue.

Well, I think I'm about 90% of the way there. Here's an interesting story... I booked one-way HND-NGO-HNL. Then I wanted to add TPE-NRT, which is a legal routing. I was able to "prove" this by searching for a variety of dates, and I was able to get some to price properly on the website. In any case, it wasn't working for the dates I wanted, even though there were seats available on TPE-NRT. I called Alaska. About 30 minutes were spent on explaining the situation, the agent talking to all sorts of different supervisors, etc. Then they needed to call JL to get the space. Then they got the space. That was 20 minutes. Then they needed to get the ticket to price. That was another 20 minutes. Then after 20 more minutes, they said "it's all set, but the international ticketing desk needs to ticket it, and that can take up to three days." I logged into my account and sure enough, my itinerary is in there, and it looks good. However, it's not ticketed. I feel both successful and defeated. I'm successful because I finally got all the things I wanted, and it only took me 90 minutes on the phone... I feel a bit defeated because after 24 hours the ticket isn't ticketed yet, and I don't know how long it will stay held without being ticketed. Should I call AS again? Or just let it go three days? SIIIIIIGGGGHHHH...

I guess they wouldn't call them "award" tickets if they were easy to book.

I'd wait. Sounds like you have a fun trip planned.

It has been almost 48 hours now. Not ticketed... Think I should call?
{edit: I originally wrote 24, meant 48}

I think it is worth a call.

When I had a JL itin waiting for ticketing like this AS told me they would hold it for 3 days IIRC and the hold would expire at midnight (IIRC) on the third day. I think it may have even said when the expiry time was if I attempted to pull up the res (would come up with an error but in there somewhere was the expiry time). Since you are up to two days already I would call in to make sure they either ticket it or extend the hold. Get names and note the time of your call in case they do not come through on their promises.

Hello! I’m trying to plan a trip for late Sept. Going to Tokyo and leaving LAX. So it’s about 330 days out and I check Alaska site to see if award space is there.

- first I search LAX - NRT and see two F spots on 9/26 when searching on calendar view
- however, when I try to modify my current ticket, that award space isn’t there anymore...
- when I search again by exact date and not in calendar view, award space also disappears!
- searched again in calendar view and it shows F space still available and when I click on it, it shows space...
- I call Alaska and they don’t see anything.

Am I searching too early ? A typical glitch? A lag from when space was already bought? I’m going to keep trying every now and see if the space becomes more available on the site. Anyone else experience something similar on Alaska site? I’m getting anxiety!

My guess is that flight, JL61, since it leaves on 9/26 but doesn't arrive until the 27th is why its not showing up. The 27th would be 331 days out. Try waiting 1 more day??

Always expect problems with JL when booking at the 331 day window. It seems some partners will not be available exactly at 331. For instance JL is only showing space through 9/22, i bet it has something to do with back when all the ~330 out booking went on hold, so they just pulled them all together from booking.

Seems there is some purposeful withholding going on with some of the partners as well for example QF is only showing though July 10th.

I didn’t even think about the time difference! That makes sense. Thank you, I’ll wait a few days. :)

Hopefully it will still be there, Using BA award search JL has 2 seats available to partners on the flight

Not sure if you saw, but looks like its currently available. Hope you get it booked!! :D:D:D

I just went on BA's site and it shows it's still available! However, Alaska's site is still not showing it properly and it disappears when not in 'award calendar' mode. Same thing happens when I checked SFO-HND on that date so maybe it's still too early to book... I just cross-checked BA's site with Alaska's site and Alaska's JL availability in all classes disappears starting Monday 9/24 (even though BA shows space). So my hunch is that in three days 9/26 will finally open up to book on Alaska since it seems they are a few days behind. *crosses fingers*

JL award availability on AS is pretty much T-325. See https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/alas...ll-cabins.html starting around post #213 ;)

(will flag to mods to merge into that thread)

Strange. I remember checking that night and it showed available on Alaska's site on calendar mode and also when you clicked on the day. I can remember when I was searching for my booking with JAL the availability seemed to come and go as well. Not sure why? Hope it shows up for you. Just keep checking back.

Do they go into a pend and reject if you book them? I was seeing them appear a couple days after the window opens up. I see 9/19 w/ F is bookable now on AS site though only Y/J after so ut seems the hold out the F space longer than lower cabins. 9/26 on BA still shows 2 seats but none on AS.

Thank you!! Yes! I wish I knew this before, instead of spending a week figuring out why they weren't showing up 331 days out lol. But...success! I was able to book 2 F tickets (SEA-LAX-NRT) for 9/26 this morning. The award space showed up exactly 325 days out. I was able to change it online.

I'm so excited! Thanks for all the help everybody.

I'm searching for 2 JAL F seats US-TYO at the end of the schedule (on AS.com). I can only find flights with one F seat (but with J space as well). JAL seems to open up F space T-14d pretty consistently. If I book 1 F and 1 J on the same PNR, will I have difficulty calling in and getting the J seat bumped to F when (if) it opens up at T-14?

I believe It will need to be 2 separate PNR's to be able to have one person in F and one person in J. Its not a problem to get the person moved from J to F if space opens up, just the extra points and and difference in taxes.

I want to book to J class BOS to NRT for next November. The date isn't available on Alaska yet but I can see from JAL's site that the two seats were already taken. I plan on booking from JFK and changing should more Boston seats become available. How close to the departure date does JAL release more J award seats?

I was only able to get economy tix for a flight on JAL to tokyo since J class was already taken. I plan on adding a flight (making Tokyo my stopover) in a week or so when it becomes available. Is it possible to add the flight NRT to SIN as J or will i be forced into economy for my whole itinerary?

You can add the J segment, and it'll just be price-adjusted as a US-Asia J award.

Thanks for the quick reply. So in theory if J became available at a later date, I could change my BOS to NRT segment to J with no additional points? Also will be checking to see if J or F opens up from JFK.

Inside 60 days from departure, if its the exact same flight $125 is charged if the change requires additional points. (its waived if Gold) If you change flights regardless of points required $125 is charged (if not gold)

I initially asked my question in the "2018 Alaska Airlines *FLAME-FREE* Q&A thread" but this may actually be the best location to ask since it relates to JL bookings. Last week I started looking for availability on JL to fly from JFK to Tokyo and then to Seoul. I ran into a few problems as I was getting phantom space when looking for availability in March for both J and F space but after some reading thru this forum I learned about using the BA site to find realtime space. I found and booked 2 one-way seats in J for JFK-Tokyo then onto Seoul 4 days later and then I managed to also book 2 one-way seats in J for Seoul-Tokyo-JFK. This all required searching the BA site 2-3 times a day but it was worth it as I was excited to find seats with such short notice for a March trip. A few days after booking I kept searching the BA site for award availability and was able to find 2 F seats had opened for JFK - Tokyo so I quickly called Alaska Airlines and was able to change my previous J seats from JFK - Tokyo to F seats. For the Seoul-Tokyo flight I only had an option between an 8AM flight or a 7:20PM flight so I settled for the 7:20PM flight. I noticed that some dates in Jan and Feb show Seoul-Tokyo with other flight times so my question is.... is it likely that JL might open award availability for their other flight times later on or are the two flight times I see now for many of the days essential all that JL gives Alaska? It seems that I have until mid/late Jan to make changes to my reservations without the $125 fee so my plan was to just keep looking at the Alaska and BA site daily to see if anything opened but I figured I'd ask you guys if this is worth while or if I'm just wasting my time.

Thanks for all the valuable info.

I think I can probably answer my own question... I continued to look at availability and I'm now seeing Seoul-Tokyo flight times available in Jan and Feb that were not previously available so I'm guessing JL releases more than just 2 flight times to Alaska as the flight time approaches. I'm also glad I keep searching the BA site for space availability as I was able to see that 2 F seats opened up for 3/30 when I checked around noon and was able to call Alaska rebook my from J to F on the return flight.

This may serve as a useful data point for some people, so here goes. In mid-December my wife and I were returning home from Hong Kong. We were originally booked on Cathay, but she was in F and I was in J. We missed out on an upgrade due to a very unhelpful and incompetent AS agent (another story), and were accepting that we'd fly home in separate classes when I noticed, 4 days before our departure, that there were 6 - 6! - F seats showing on the BA website for the JL flight on our departure date. AS' website was down, so I had to call in and book. Of course, there were the usual problems - BA showed 6 seats, AS only saw 2 - and I was able to book 1 seat initially. I tried to book the 2nd seat, but then availability had vanished. Dispirited, I went to dinner and checked back 2 hours later. AS had 1 seat available and I was able to grab it. So it's possible to get multiple F seats close in to departure, you may just have to do them a few hours apart.

Does AS apply married segment logic to JL bookings?
For example I see J2 for HKG-NRT and NRT-BOS when searching the segments separately, but only J1 if I search HKG-BOS (connects in NRT).
So can I book 2 NRT-BOS and call to have HKG-NRT added?
Thanks.

Does JL and AS open award availability for all available J seats right before departure, even for peak dates? I'm trying to book two J seats from HND to SFO in mid-August, but there is very limited availability on AS and BA's websites for most of the month. Will I have any luck a week or two before departure or will they just block seats until the end? Thanks!

AFAIK AS isn't blocking seats. If JL offers them for sale, AS should have access.

I'm new to booking award travel on JL, so I apologize for this noobish question (and obviously I won't hold anyone to this): how likely would it be for me to be able to get a single F seat from SFO to HND during the first week or two of this upcoming April (i.e., in three months) if I'm willing to wait until the bitter end? I've already got a backup plan arranged on an entirely different route, but it would be nice to know if I'm better off making plans with the assumption that I probably won't be having a stopover in Tokyo.

Single seat should have a pretty good shot IME if F isn't full on this route. Typically would open within 2 weeks (or closer) however.

If you're set on F and 4/13 is still within your time frame BA currently shows 2 seats from SFO to HND. If you have flexibility for business class then it looks like you have plenty of date options in the first 2 weeks per BA.

In my case when I started looking for seats for a trip to Tokyo on JL in late December for this March I initially also didn't see any open F seats. I played around with dates and I was able to do an initial booking for business seats and then I kept checking (felt insane as I often checked the BA site 3 times a day) in case any F seats opened. A week after booking my business seats F seats opened around my outbound dates so I called Alaska customer support and switch from business to first. I kept checking again and just before new year's eve I was able to see F seats open around the dates of my return flight so again I called customer support and had them assist with changing my booking. I guess what I' m trying to say based solely on my experience is that since you are still far out from 60 days of your flight you may want to consider grabbing a business seat and check regularly for an F seat to open up. Worst case if you decide not to take the booked business seat you just cancel before the 60 day cutoff to get your points back and you'd just be out the booking fee Alaska charges.

When wanting to book two award seats on the same itin and pay from two different AS accounts, is AS pretty good at grabbing the space first, then splitting to separate PNRs to have the mileage come out of two different accounts? These are one ways, so no using one account for one direction and the other for the return. TIA

Thanks for that, and the encouraging words. 4/13 is a little later than I planned on, but I can live with it :) I've been checking Alaska and BA way too frequently for my own health at this point, but I'll keep trying for a better date, and the connection!

That would work well. The accounts will have the full amount in each individual account, no quarter/halves, etc I wouldnt care if it was two separate PNRs, but if they can pull into a single, then even better.
Thank you.

Another rookie question: as FTNNBP pointed out, there were 2 F seats available for 4/13 on JL001. I signed up for ExpertFlyer to play around with it a bit, and noticed that after I booked that flight EF showed F6 A6. When I went back today to check on other dates on BA, I saw that the other F seat was no longer available for the 13th. Out of curiosity, I went back to EF expecting to see F5 A5. Instead, it showed F7 A7. Does this mean that they took that seat back out of award inventory to sell, and is it because someone (me) booked one of them?

Come on, @thecowgoesmoo. Your question has nothing to do with booking JL using AS.
It is either about JL inventory management, or EF display mechanics (why it displayed F6 and then switched to F7).
You might have better luck asking in the JL forum.
13 Apr 2018 [Fri] JL 1 SFO HND