skimthetrees

Dates? Any connections or just the non-stop NRT-JFK?

NYCroots

Non-stop NRT - JFK on March 2nd. JAL website is showing 3 seats left at the 50k level

skimthetrees

I do not see any saver availability even on JAL's site for March 2nd.

NYCroots

Yeah, I'm seeing 102,500 per ticket on the JAL website

dkc192

With all due respect it wasn't a one-day fluke. It was at least a four-day fluke/trend:

On 1/18, 1-2 F awards available for travel on 11/16 on NRT-JFK, HND-JFK, NRT-ORD, HND-SFO
On 1/19, 1-2 F awards available for travel on 11/17 on all routes above plus NRT-LAX
On 1/20, 1-2 F awards available for travel on 11/18 on all routes above
On 1/21, 1-2 F awards available for travel on 11/19 on all routes above
On 1/22, no F awards appeared for travel on 11/20 on any route

In each case, the availability above was pulled ~24 hours after they were first released and replaced by availability on the following day. Could've been a "fluke" in that JL never intended to release the space, but I and at least one other FTer managed to book these awards. At the time, I thought it might've been more an intentional "trend" than a "fluke", but who knows.

skimthetrees

I stand corrected. Good research there. Hopefully this can help someone. It could be that someone else has realized the same pattern you have and camps on space for a certain day or days.

louie-m

Thanks for the response. I got there in the end. In case it helps anyone else, I tried four agents, each time just asking them about the one JAL flight that I thought might be an issue as that was the only one of a series of four flights where I didn't have any alternative. None of them could see flights that I could see on both BA and Qantas. On the fifth attempt, I asked the agent to check the whole series of four optimal flights (shorthaul, JAL longhaul, other OW longhaul, shorthaul) and that was no problem. I don't know if they have to do anything different if they are searching for multiple airlines flights at the same time or whether it is just a coincidence, but last time I tried to get JAL flights - and had no trouble getting them first time - I took the same approach.

gizayabasu

Is it normal for a booking in a few months to stay "on request" and take a couple of days to process? Feel like I'm used to last minute bookings and having them go through pretty quickly.

dkc192

Yes, this is normal, assuming you are talking about your booking being the queue for ticketing, during which the booking status on AA.com shows as "on request". As you implied, awards are queued for review and ticketing based on date of departure, with close-in travel prioritized. That said, if your booking still shows as "on request" for more than 4-5 days, I'd call in; chances are something is holding up ticketing. Most of my awards, even those for travel 6+ months out, ticket in 24-72 hours.

Brooke.E

I called AA to add a segment and request ticketing of my award on JAL at ~1:15am yesterday and I got the e-mail confirming that it was ticketed at 9:08am that morning. My flights are not until next December. So while it seems to be quite normal for these to take a couple of days to ticket it seems very strange that my ticket for a flight that is 11 months out was ticketed more quickly than your ticket that is only a few months out so maybe just call and double check that there isn't a problem.

Happy

If it is longer than 48 to 72 hours, very high probability there are some kinds of issues. Whenever that happened to our reservations, when called back, the next or the next next agent often found out where it went wrong - the most common issue for us was the agent forgot to do an extra step when we agreed on voluntary downgrade with a J redemption. (very common these days with AA's domestic connection) Presumably even it is booked in T with voluntary downgrade, agent needs to enter some code to denote the passenger has agreed and accepted the downgrade.
Usually our reservations are ticketed within the first 24 hours. Very rarely goes beyond that. This is across the board with virtually all partner awards.

ISpaulding

I have had to wait several days in the past, not because of issues but because of how far in advance that I booked award tickets. It seems like closer in tickets get priority. Still never hurts though to inquire as to the reason. It could be, as others have stated, an issue.

sriirvine

Hello,
I'm have 2 J and 2 Y on hold next Christmas time. Looks like the wiki says that more availability doesn't show up after the initial load till ~ 14 days out. However, I see some people saw F/J seats open up after well after 330 days but before ~14 days out. Are those datapoints just anomalies? I'm really hoping we can upgrade the 2 Y -> J!

On another note, how is everyone seeing F availability on BA? BA only seems to list Y, PY and J.

Thanks.

frisbfreek

sriirvine

Thanks frisbfreek! It's obvious once you pointed it out! Do people set alerts on U/Z on AwardNexus? I thought EF doesn't show JAL award availablity, only open revenue seats?