Feasibility of ANA J booking for 2

Nov 2, 2023, 11:32 am

#1

zackroli

Original Poster

Join Date: Nov 2023

Posts: 5

Feasibility of ANA J booking for 2

I'm planning a trip and would love a gut check on my strategy so far. The itinerary is as follows: USA to HND around Feb 7, ICN to TPE on Feb 22, and TPE back to the USA around May 19.

Here's what we were originally thinking to book sometime beginning of Feb '24.

Book T-5/T-6 J to Tokyo from ORD/JFK/IAH etc.
Book Y/J from ICN to TPE (we were also thinking KIX-ICN but I guess it doesn't really matter)
Book J from TPE back to the U.S. at T-355, then change to my desired date when T-5/T-6 opens up.

Findings/Questions:

Availability seems unpredictable at T-14 days. It's certainly plentiful recently out of ORD, IAD, and IAH T-5/T-6. I've seen abundance of JFK a few months ago, but absolutely nothing now. Does this pattern hold consistently based on your experiences? Is this due to demand/season? Or result of a black box?
For my return, I'm weighing between flying direct from TPE to the USA via EVA or routing through Tokyo for more predictable (but more limited?) availability and pricing on ANA. If I choose the latter, I understand I'll have to skip the ICN-TPE segment due to ANA routing rules—can anyone confirm if that's correct?
EVA's J availability to ANA to me is questionable at T-355. I'm not seeing the same seats on ANA that show as available on seats.aero via Air Canada and United. Is this common? I know there was some United phantom issues and Air Canada search issues, is this related?
When attempting a multi-city mock booking, I found that the following itineraries are searchable and valid (at least I got to the point where it says I had an insufficient balance). Note that all flights departing ICN/TPE are EVA metal.

ORD-HND (stop) ICN-PVG-TPE (stop) TPE-JFK all in J (which makes no sense to me)
ORD-HND (stop) ICN-TPE (stop) TPE-ORD all in J
ORD-HND (stop) TPE-ORD all in J
ORD-HND J (stop) ICN-TPE J (stop) TPE-ORD Y

However, this was NOT a valid itinerary. Why?

ORD-HND J (stop) ICN-TPE Y (stop) TPE-ORD J

Should I be concerned about seasonal pricing changes affecting points required and surcharges, given my travel dates?
I'm booking for myself and a non-family member (but we do live in the same household). If I'm understanding ANA rules correctly, I am not allowed to book for them. Since we are booking on separate accounts, it's unclear to me the likelihood we will be seated together on any of the flights.

Overall, I'm trying to gauge a likelihood of success with the previous strategies. I have high, but decreasing confidence I'll be able to get the outbound, I'm a lot more scared on the inbound. I am guessing that regardless of if we return from TPE or TYO, we will have to book on a separate plane to start (which is fine).

Any insights or shared experiences with similar itineraries would be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Last edited by zackroli; Nov 2, 2023 at 12:32 pm Reason: added question

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