muddy

the surprise to me was that the governments involved allow the sale of these tickets ... not shocked, just surprised ...

Blumie

There's no question that the AA GIG-GRU flight cannot be booked as a separate flight. There's also no question that it can be booked if continuing on to AA's DFW, MIA, or JFK flight. Are you positive that it cannot be booked if continuing on to BA's EZE flight or another international flight?

nacirema

the reason this is allowed is because the airline(s) are connecting through 3rd country as in

cx jfk-yvr-hkg is bookable for the jfk-yvr segment only

whereas qf jfk-lax-syd is not bookable for the jfk-lax segment

again

aa mia-eze-mdv is allowed to book people for the eze-mdv segment

or airindia ord(?)-bru-del where they are allowed to sell ord(?)-bru ticket
(i'm not sure if they fly from ord or jfk but the same principle)



until this new open skies agreement was signed, we did not allow a foreign based airline, let's use ba for this example, to fly just between 2 non-uk cities, e.g. jfk-cdg-jfk, now they will be allowed to do just that.


what's still not allowed in us is domestic travel on a foreign owned airline, that's why qf can't sell jfk-lax ticket.

nacirema

by your logic then, qf should be able to sell jfk-lax(qf)-nrt(aa) ticket? they are not, so i believe the brazilians are going by the same rule.

it wasn't possible couple of years ago. look at post #42

muddy

maybe this is a bug on ba.com and the purchase would never happen, but I was able to pull this up for exe-gru only:

14:15
31 Jan 16:50
31 Jan Buenos Aires (Pistarini) Sao Paulo (Guarulhos) BA0246
British Airways World Traveller
07:45
7 Feb 10:30
7 Feb Sao Paulo (Guarulhos) Buenos Aires (Pistarini) BA0247
British Airways World Traveller
$ 538.85

Currency calculator
Change flights

Price breakdown
Passenger Price Taxes, fees, charges and surcharges* per person Inclusive total
1 Adult $ 421.00 $ 117.85 $ 538.85

Blumie

Got it. I'll try again and report back. Right now AA is showing virtually no U or Z inventory on its GRU/GIG flights for October (I think I found two dates all month that had one Z seat), so I'll have to wait until closer to departure to see if seats open up. Do any of the online sites (e.g., QF, BA) show JL award inventory or do I need to call? I did a quick search on QF and did not see anything, but that could have been because there was no availability.

oiRRio

Well I haven't been able to and God knows I've tried. However, I would love to be proved wrong on this one.

nacirema

read my post again

it's not as if ba operates the flight eze-gru-eze only, it's lhr-eze-gru-eze-lhr flight.

nacirema

maybe i'm misunderstanding something but why are you looking for aa gru-gig inventory if you want to fly with jl jfk-gru?

you would need to purchase a revenue ticket with one of the local airlines if you want both, jl to gru and final destination gig.

Blumie

GIG is my final destination, but I'm just playing around to see if I can fit in a JFK-GRU flight on JL and a GRU-EZE flight on BA on a MIA-GIG-MIA oneworld award. So the routing, if it would work, would be MIA-JFK-GRU-GIG-GRU-EZE-MIA. If I had to purchase the GRU-GIG-GRU portion, I imagine that would be pretty cheap to do (although I would miss out on a half hour flight in the 777 suites).

PresRDC

Another thing to keep in mind is that the JAL flight uses the old F seats (the 2x2 felt covered seats) that are more akin to the old Coffin seats on AA.

I don't think anyone would argue that the Flagship Suite is the superior seating product.

oiRRio, I am now engaged. Thanks!

I actually got the JAL seat at the last minute (about a week prior to departure), but my fiance, when given the choice between more doting service (JAL) or a better seat (AA), opted for AA. I was on an AONE ticket, so availability for me wasn't a problem on either.

Blumie

That's good to know, since to me the seat is the most important thing. Is JL in the process of upgrading the old seats, or will some of its aircraft just always have the old seats?

nacirema

here are the seats

http://www.jal.co.jp/en/inflight/int...at/index2.html

PresRDC

JAL has upgraded only ahandful of aircraft and does not have immediate plans to upgrade any more (new 777-300ERs are being delivered with the new seats, but they aren'g flying this route).

JAL has been experiencing some very serious financial problems of late and is deferring these type of projects until things improve. JAL is one of the customers for which I cover at my company. Cutting this expense is one of the least drastic things they're doing.

Blumie

Coninuing my hijacking of this thread ...

There is not sufficient inventory for me to fly JFK-GIG on AA in either F or Y. IB has inventory via MAD in both directions, but that routing is not valid for an all partners award, so I had to turn it into a oneworld award.

So here's what I'm holding, all in J:

JFK-GRU on JL

GIG-MAD on IB
MAD-JFK on IB

The agent confirmed that I cannot add in GRU-GIG on AA; I'll have to purchase that segment on my own. She also confirmed that GRU-(BA)-EZE-(AA)-JFK would have worked, but there was no EZE-JFK inventory available.

So here are my questions:

1. This will be my first JL flight. Is it a safe assumption that they have a good J cabin? As I mentioned before, the comfort of the seat is my primary concern.

2. I'm a big fan of IB J, but the EXP agent said that on the weekends, the IB GIG-MAD flight is operated by Gestair, which used to be known as Audeli. (Here is what I found on Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audeli_Air.) Does anyone know anything about them? Is it gonna look and smell and taste just like an IB flight? There is an IB flight from GRU that I could catch if I had to, but I'd rather stick with the non-stop.

3. Is there any difference in J between IB's A340s and its A346s? (I assume the former is the 300 series.)