lawyeraaron

Im considering taking a trip next year (with a mix of Alaska and Fiji Air flights) to Australia with a stopover in Fiji. The award chart says it costs 55k in Alaska miles. The routing would be IND/BNA to LAX/SFO to NAN to MEL. Alaska's search engine keeps showing mixed class itineraries with economy class flights on the Alaska IND/BNA to LAX/SFO and business class flights to NAN and MEL. It does not offer First class Alaska flights for this itinerary at any cost, even though first class rewards flights are available individually on the dates I checked. I have looked at different days in several months but the search engine only offers economy on the Alaska flights. It appears there is no business class on the Alaska flights and the first class cost IND/BNA to LAX/SFO is 60k. I assume the problem is that those flights require more miles than the international flights, but it seems really odd to me that there is no way to book the premium cabin for the entire trip.

Has anyone else had this problem? Is there any way around this?

Thanks

CDKing

Partner awards require saver space on Alaska to be included in the award. When you are in a once daily AS city, saver awards can be scarce.
Fiji Air usually its usually hard to find business class as well. usually its mixed cabin with J on the flight NAN-South Pacific.
Only way around is to find saver F space from another city and fly IND/BNA on a separate cash ticket.

Bretmd

Flying for Fun

Furthermore, you can monitor for Saver A space and be moved into it if it opens up with no change fees. If you have AS Elite status you would also be waitlisted for a complimentary upgrade.

LAX-NAN is a 11h 20m flight, NAN-MEL a 5h 55m flight. An FJ Northern Hemisphere summer one-way J fare with a NAN stopover is pricing at USD $3637. For 55K that is a great value regardless of where you sit getting to the west coast.

James

lawyeraaron

Thanks!

kindagot

Have a look at flights the next day. i have just booked one from JFK to AKL First to LAX then J to Nadi and AKL. I noticed that the flight I wanted simply dropped out while I had it in my cart, tried for a few hours and still didn't come back on search results . 24 hours later one appeared with a slightly later flight from JFK and I booked it.

CeeCee101

We have a major anniversary next year, June. We have a ton of AS miles. We’d like to do J from LAX or SFO, Fiji Airways via AS miles to NAD RT. I know these are going to be tough. I already have the first date flagged when I need to start checking. Questions: do I check every day? More than once per day? Any good time? How many months should I give it before throwing in the towel? Don’t want to wait T-14 as this trip is hugely important. Thoughts? TIA.

ft543

FJ availability seems to come in waves. Earlier this year they loaded a ton of YVR space, basically every flight through end of season. I stumbled upon it after checking daily out of YVR/SFO/LAX for a month. I don't think you're gaining a lot by checking more than daily imo.

Also, FJ is getting a few more 350s, so hopefully the 330s will be rotated off of North America flights.

AKLifetimeFlyer

Does Expert Flyer have data access for Fiji Airways? If so, you may want to invest and set alerts for your date and fare class availability, so you will get pinged when J award space opens up. If Fiji Airways was one of the airlines removed from EF, disregard the above and just search daily starting at T332 (latest I can search today is for 3/31/24).

scubadu

Nope

Regards

CeeCee101

Expert Flyer and all other alert sites I have looked at don’t have Fiji Air.

I mean we could do YVR but hate to fly from SoCal all the way up there. However due to Spouse back issues def need a J flight. MC or even PE isn’t going to work. I guess I will check all 3?

Flying for Fun

It looks like YVR-NAN will be operated on the A350-900 from October 2nd.

I only see 1 J on the route on two separate dates between now and the end March.

I would just keep looking. FJ award availability come and goes pretty randomly. I don't think trying to get 2 J at the end of schedule is an effective strategy.

James

Mwenenzi

FJ also fly from HNL. But then a shorter flight in business class.
A map from the Great Circle Mapper - Great Circle Mapper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s_destinations
https://www.fijiairways.com/book/route-map/
NAD is in South America. NAN in Fiji

Flying for Fun

FJ HNL-NAN is operated on a 738M, 8 J seats 2-2 2 rows. Not full-flat but infinitely better than what VX ever had. You can't connect to/from HI on the same award so you need to get yourself there & back whether revenue or additional awards. The mid-Pacific route usually has a stop at another island.

I had 2 J SYD-NAN//NAN-HNL last December but cancelled it when the CXI stop was dropped and it became a non-stop. The CXI stop was the intrigue. CXI is 24 hours ahead of HNL, the flight duration ~3 hours so you arrive in HNL 21 hours before you depart.

James

robsaw

Snagged 2 J YVR-NAN for next March on A350. Just have to monitor for a few days before early morning Pacific time (I think they appeared sometime between 5:30 - 7:00) to snag them as soon as they are released. They get snapped-up fast. I can't say that the pattern of how many and when is consistent.