FT-hss

Saw this multtiple times past few days. Finally today, thought would at least get one bird in hand, so tried to book LAX-SFO-HDN-DEL although, as usual, my final intention in PHX-BOM (crazy, I know, but done it sevelral times by buying separate tickets to LAX and BOM so I can get JAL F and J most of the way). Only to find in last purchase step that the initinerary is NOT bookable. Then spent couplde of hours with a patient AS rep, who finally said there is an ongoing issue since beginning of this year with phantom inventory from CZ, KE and JA with no ETA on a fix. So caved in and booked something on Qatar economy just so that I dont miss critical dates.

Wonder if other than trying to book dummy itins daily to see when one goes through, if there is any other way to get alerted when the issue is fixed

olouie

Anytime you see strange domestic routing, Especially backtracking, it’s fairly safe to assume it’s phantom.

estnet

Did it book as one ticket or two? eg sin-hnd-kix -hnd-lax or as two separate tickets with two awards?

buylowsellhigh

Its on the same PNR. 65k miles. a 20 hr "open jaw connection"

estnet

​​​​​​What class was this? I'm interested b/c I tried to book bkk-hnd-kix to connect to hnd-sfo (because the legs were available separately but was told they had to be ticketed as separate awards and kix and hnd were not co-terminals - so for some reason they wouldn't allow it. Didn't allow as open jaw for me ?!? even tho I have done bkk-tyo-sfo with a 7 day stay at tyo.

Sandeep1

65k would be J class (60 for the hnd-sfo segment) and (5 for bkk-hnd-kix)

whitf00t

Sorry guys, newbie but hopefully someone can help. I'm trying to plan a trip from ORD-BKK next year and have a couple questions.

Is the best way to do it often a multi city, like ORD-TOKYO-BKK (with a same day connecting flight), or do one ways work better? Half the time one is better, half the time it's the other. It's super challenging bc of all the partners to actually find certain flight availability (for example, a connecting Narita-BKK rarely has available business) - doesn't seem as though JAL is on ExpertFlyer.

I also checked Cathay Pacific thru HKG (doesn't even show up) and would prefer not to fly Korean as they seem to have an inferior product.

Edit -- Lastly, is it a safe bet to wait and assume award space opens within 2 weeks? Thinking of just booking business as a placeholder and hoping that some F appears later - though now I'm noticing that ORD-TOKYO opens up 2 weeks in advance more widely whereas TOKYO-BKK opens up only far in advance... ugh!

estnet

if it is priced separately it would be 25 for bkk-kix in J plus the hnd-sfo - which was exactly why I wanted them to ticket on one ticket (pnr) which they would not do - so in my case it cost an extra 20k miles

Sandeep1

That would be 85k then if priced separately (60k for the hnd-sfo portion). But OP said 65 so we know it's J class although it's possible the bkk-hnd-kix was in Y if OP couldn't find J availability for that segment.

eponymous_coward

LOL. KIX and HND aren't coterminals because they're over 250 miles apart and serve different cities. That's like LGA and DCA being coterminals. AS's booking engine is notorious for just doing dumb things like thinking BKK-SIN-LHR(stop)-SIN-HKG is an intra-Asia SQ award (they fixed that), and that + JL doing a lot of married segment inventory probably explains OP's result, but it doesn't make KIX an an alternate for TYO the same way NRT and HND are.

buylowsellhigh

TYO-LAX requires the same miles as SIN-TYO-LAX!

skimthetrees

Even though a lot of F has been opening up within 2 weeks lately it is not guaranteed and no one knows what will happen a year from now so have a backup.

Booking a year out at the edge of the window is a good time to look for availability so long as you are not traveling in a peak travel period. Make sure you are familiar with the calendar trick and when it is useful, and if you have extra miles it may also be helpful to familiarize yourself with the reverse round-trip workaround.

If you cannot find ORD-BKK it may help (availability wise) to create a stopover in TYO for a day or two. This may allow you to connect up availability on different days that may not be available without a stopover. Since AS allows free stopovers this can be a good strategy if you don't mind spending a day or two in TYO. You can search multi-city ORD-TYO and TYO-BKK. Use the TYO code to pick up availability for both HND and NRT.

Don't discount looking from other gateways. Possibly SEA.

Sandeep1

Extra 5k for the SIN portion

estnet

Yes I know why they aren't co-terminals, but my point was that they allowed someone to do an open jaw and not have to price as 2 awards, when I couldn't do this b/c they claimed it had to be a co-terminal and open jaw wasn't allowed so it cost me an extra 20k miles

TravelingZoomer

I have many times booked xxx - TYO - KIX/ITM, stopover, TYO - USA