Happy

I never looked this far out, only in the next 4 to 6 months and the availability was good.

Business class awards book to S (coach) for domestic Japan. Only F award would book into the front cabin. I forgot where I found this but pretty sure this is the case. Our current trip has 2 domestic Japan segments - KIX-CTS and CTS-NRT. They are booked to S. Another Fter confirmed that even J seat opened up before he flew, neither AA nor JL would let him switch. However, JL would gladly sell you an upgrade at the gate though, from what I read.

Actually, if you have enough time, I would go for the 7 day JR Pass and do the night train from Osaka to Hakadote (Shinkansen all the way till last stretch before crossing the tunnel, switch to Express there to go to Hokkaido) for at least one-way. There are also night trains between Osaka and Fukuoka. We rode it one time. The seats were like airline's Lieflat business class seats and the car was darked out once the train started out from Osaka. They even had a car that was destinated for women only.

100% agree about HKG-XIY. You often get deep discount fares once you are in Hong Kong - must book thru travel agency though. My idea is to join a Hong Kong based tour designed for Chinese (not foreigner), that usually fly in PEK and fly out XIY - most cost efficient and hassle-free. Tons of such tours available once you are in Hong Kong.

Happy

Every single segment flown counts. The only non-counted segment is the Land Segment, i.e. open jaw.

It will be HKG-TPE-AMM for mileage calculation, unless your ticket shows it as a through flight, i.e. the TPE is a pit-stop and it does not show up on itinerary at all.

BrooksT

Thanks for the answers and patience, everyone. Wow, this is more complicated than I ever expected.

My current snag is that it seems that it's not possible to fly CX from the U.S. west coast (or YVR) to Hong Kong in business class; the oneworld ticket is for class U, and Cathay simply doesn't have a "U" class for those routes (usually they show U0 or UC of the fare exists but is sold out). Am I missing something?

soitgoes

Where are you looking?
These are hidden fare classes and aren't accessible through most sources.

BrooksT

I'm looking on the "Awards and Upgrades" section of expertflyer.com, which claims to show those (and is showing 'em for other flights on my itinerary).

LRD

The best way to show YVR/LAX/SFO-HKG CX award inventory is to get a Asia Miles or BA account and attempt a dummy redemption.

BrooksT

Thanks for the help, everyone! I ended up giving up on going via HKG; there are just no awards available on CX in July or August (well, I think there was one day in August, but it didn't work with my schedule). I ended up ticketing YVR - (x)LHR - AMM - SSH - (open jaw) - CAI - (x)MAD - TNG - (x)MAD - IST - BUD - SPU - (x)BUD - LHR - YVR, and I'm pretty happy with that. No round-the-world style points, but a good trip nonetheless.

Stuff I learned in the process:

- If the agent you're speaking to doesn't know what a OneWorld award is ("you've got too many connections for an award ticket, you can only have one!"), thank them and call back. You cannot educate them enough for them to be useful.

- It's pretty easy to tell the agents who are engaged and interested and who are looking for ways to make something work, as opposed to those who just want you off the phone ASAP and figure "no, can't do that either" is the best way to achieve that.

- Use both the OneWorld tools and ExpertFlyer tools to check routing *and* class availability before calling, so you can fine tune dates/itinerary order at leisure.

- Unfortunately, if you find a fantastic agent (Denise, Catherine), you can't ask to be transferred to them or to wait for them. It's a shame.

- Considering the 30% mileage premium for business class versus the 300% retail difference, perceived value says you've gotta go business.

Anyways, thanks for all of the help and clarification. That was definitely a project!

-Brooks

RobtErskine

When I searched the thread for this issue, I ran into a debate around post #328 regarding whether JQ could be used as part of a OW award. Those posts indicated that since AA.com listed JQ as a QF affiliate, you could argue with AA that they should allow the use of JQ; however, other posters indicated that in practice, AA would not allow it. The first post still states that the AA website indicates that JQ is an affiliate - but when I accessed the AA.com affiliate page today, JQ is not listed on that page under QF affiliates.

So, two questions - first, has anyone been able to use JQ for a OW award booked with AA miles, and second, if not, should the first post in this thread be edited to reflect the apparent change made on AA.com? Of course, if there is another reference on AA.com that seems to allow the use of JQ that I am missing, I'd appreciate a link. Thanks.

skunker

Earlier this month I booked 2 SAN-LAX-HKG-SIN-KUL tickets. Last week I called to change the HKG-SIN to an early flight (from the 11:20am to 8:55 am) since the CX flight arrives in HKG at 5:25am. AA called me today to tell me that I have to switch back to the later flight since the earlier flight would make the time in SIN longer than 6 hours and thus a stopover. JL only runs one flight a day (7:50pm) to KUL. The CSR was very rude and said the ticket hasn't been issued, according to AA.com it has, and said there was nothing she can do about it but maybe customer relations could help. I asked if she could transfer me, she said no. I asked for their number, she said they didn't have one I had to email through AA.com and they would call me.

Does this make sense? Since there is only one flight a day, does it matter what time we get to SIN? I don't want to wander around HKG for 6 hours only to have to wander around SIN for 4 hours. We are probably going to ditch the JL portion anyway and just buy a ticket to LGK so we want to get SIN as early as possible.

Happy

Have you ticketed the itinerary already? If you have not ticketed it, then just make the connection a stopover, it would not change the mileage calculation at all.

However, if you already ticketed it, but now you want to do a voluntary change on the HKG-SIN flight, then there are 2 issues you will be shot down. 1st is the violation of 6 hours connection rule as the rep told you. 2nd is you cannot change routing on OW award after it is ticketed - a connection turns into stopover is considered routing change and is not allowed, unless it is involuntary change - then AA may or may not, accommodate you.

Not sure about your ditching the JL segment - does that mean your SIN-KUL is the last segment of your itinerary? If so, ditching it is fine. Otherwise, your reservation after the SIN-KUL no show will be automatically cancelled. Given this is an OW award you would have to talk to AA to get everything back to order - not the easiest task while you are in Asia.

Even if the JL segment is the last segment, if you already ticketed the itinerary, you have to keep the segment on your ticket - whether you fly it or not is your decision - but you cannot now change to SAN-LAX-HKG-SIN. For that reason, you cannot change to an earlier HKG-SIN flight either because of the 6 hours rule.

OW award is very restrictive once it is ticketed - only date / flight Number change is allowed - no connection to stopover or vice versa, nor co-terminal changes, nor carrier change, let alone changing the cities on the itinerary.

Austinrunner

The first post has been updated to reflect the change on the AA website.

skunker

Yes, it has already been ticketed and after changing the flight, re-ticketed. Yes, the JL SIN-KUL segment is the last segment. I know we have to keep it; it was the only way to make the trip legal as AA wanted to route me NRT-HKG(overnight)-KUL. But, we probably won't take the leg because it would be easier just to catch a flight from SIN to LGK then to fly to KUL and catch a flight in the morning.
My problem is that all I'm changing is flight time. There is only one JL flight per day so I was hoping this line in the rules would apply:

chickenorpasta

Forgive me if this has already been asked, but I have more than 100k AA miles and I want to search for available award seats and dates on CX. But the AAdvantage award search on AA doesn't show partner flights, and when I go to the CX site, it shows I have insufficient CX miles to search for an award. Must I go through an AA awards reservation agent to help me find a seat on CX? Thanks.

skunker

Yes and no. You can search CX by creating an Asia Miles account and searching there and then calling AA to confirm and book.

Once you create an Asia Miles account, use that website to find the award then click the redeem online now button and it will take you to CX's website and let you look for specific dates. The key to using the Asia Miles website is including all the legs. For example you can't put LAX-SIN on CX as your search, you have to use LAX-HKG-SIN. Good Luck!

Happy

You can certainly fly the earlier HKG-SIN flight then connect to the SIN-KUL flight when you first ticket the itinerary using the cited rule.

Unfortunately the change of the flight makes you go over the 6 hours thus it becomes a routing change (connection to stopover) and you cannot use the rule you cited.

BTW, have you gotten seat assignments on the SIN-KUL JL flight? This is a loop flight JL does - NRT-SIN-KUL-NRT. We are booked on that flight to fly in June. JL CSR could not get us seat assignments on that flight. We all speculate it is due to the loop flight, i.e. we get on in the middle of the loop... but JL assured me we are confirmed on that flight - I can see our JL flights using JL PNR on JL website. I can select the seats for GMP - KIX, as well as NRT - SFO, but I cannot, nor JL CSR, select seats on that SIN - KUL. That really bothers me because the JL website also says You Must Have Seat Assignment 3 days before Travel!