If you’re in J you get your own hotel room. I might add you get free car service to and from the airport to your hotel if traveling in J also. Depending on where you are, the drivers don’t always speak English. If you need to communicate something with the driver, make sure you get your notes in Mandarin ready since google translate doesn’t always work in the mainland. Also I learned the hard way that names like “Sheraton” and “Holiday Inn” are not that in Mandarin.

When you say “Sheraton” or “Holiday Inn” to a non-English speaking taxi driver they do not understand and I don’t speak Mandarin so I’m just giving you my experience

Just know in J award you don’t get car service to from the airport. I’m not sure about hotel on a long layover.

The seat issue is not unique to Alaska redemptions. EF shows all the seats are blocked out because that’s what HU does until the day of departure. All seats are blocked usually up to row 15 (they start at 11 on transpacifics and skip 13). I’ve boughten about half a dozen J tickets through HU, and they block out the first two or three rows for airport control. Perfectly normal, and nobody is assigned those seats until the day of departure, so you’re getting the same treatment as a revenue pax would get. Most of the time I’ll get up to the ticket counter and if the cabin is empty ask them to give me a bulkhead with nobody sitting next to me. And since they don’t do op-ups, and they know how many passeners there are, they can usually guarantee you your own row if the cabin is empty. They did this for everyone on my YYC-PEK flights last year when the cabin was half full. Just ask at check-in. Since the airport agents know the seats are blocked out, the agents are use to getting requests for bulkhead or not having someone sit next to you, and they’re happy to help you out. By the way if you’re assigned to row 15, I would get out of there as soon as you get to the airport. It’s close to the restroom, and many passengers will use row 15 (last row in the first J cabin) as a way to walk through to the other aisle. That’s usually why I ask for a bulkhead in the corner. Although they’ll use it to get to the other side only if the J cabin is crowded(relatives on the other side, stuff like that). Another thing, get a seat in the first J cabin. I was in the last row of the second J cabin once, and there was a screaming baby directly behind me and there is not very good separation of cabins. I could not sleep at all. It’s also generally just noisier in the 2nd J mini cabin directly in front of economy.

Do keep in mind if you’re like me, and you need air vents, the A330 have them everywhere, but the 788’s do not have air vents in the center seats. I don’t know about the 789 as I’ve never been on them but I would suspect also only on the side seats.

Also their North American call centers can sometimes be a challenge, but usually whatever you need help with gets done. If you don’t want to use the phone you can use the US email support and that is routed to their help center in the Philippines I think (although that isn’t always that much better).