Winterfell86

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.

Nurse Traveler

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?

CDKing

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.

rox0825

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?

rox0825

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?

jinglish

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

rox0825

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.

CDKing

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)

FTNNBP

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.

FTNNBP

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.

Hoosier1710

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.

whistler814

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.

jch636

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!

beckoa

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

thecowgoesmoo

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.