stephem

One more data point about the consequences of AA not being able to book until 330 days. I was watching YVR-HKG and HKG-YVR like a hawk for Dec 2015 because I needed all 5 seats. I also watched LAX-HKG-LAX and SFO-HKG-SFO as a back up. We're Seattle based so YVR is really easy, and SFO a better option than LAX.

In the end, it looks like ex-YVR is pretty risky to wait, we jumped at the seats we wanted when they became available with Avios. There is now only one day (Dec 15) within our departure window where there are 5 award seats left (and it's the late night flight which we wanted to avoid). These dates aren't even bookable yet with AA miles.

ex-SFO, also w 2 daily flights was similar to YVR and there are now no days in our departure window where 5x award seats are open.

By contrast, still LAX has tons of flights within our departure window w 5x award seats open. With 4 flights a day, it seems to be the safe place to look for ex west coast awards. It even looks fine when I go back to the dates where AA could book award seats today, still finding 5x at least 1 or 2 flights a day.

It will still be another 4 days before we could book the optimal return date w Avios, and HKG-LAX is looking very good, HKG-YVR not so much. Since we have more flexibility on our return, we'll be fine if we have to route through LAX, and hopefully can use AA miles to cover the trip all the way from DPS-HKG-LAX-SEA.

iluvdoco

Not to say that 2xF seats don't exist anymore, but they seem to appear with less regularity than previously.

friedablass

Is this for J or F?

dkerr

Must be J... CX seem to consistently release 5 J award seats on the long hauls to/from north america at ~355 days out (or whenever their flights are loaded). Intra-asia I have observed it to be 4 J seats. But for F it is never more than 2 (more often 1) seat released at this time.

This pattern is not every flight on every day to every destination, some days nothing may be released. But if there is any business class released for a flight at the year-in-advance time it is usually 5.

DAK

friedablass

That's what I thought because I'd be very surprised if one can snag 5 F seats at once.... I'm having such a difficult time getting just 2 for a flight tomorrow.

Question - sorry, it's long but I want to put in all the info:

My husband and I were booked into J roundtrip JFK>HKG (return to EWR). This morning 1 F seat popped up for the outbound flight so I called AA to upgrade my husband (and hope another opens for me) and got stuck with an obnoxious agent - should have hung up and called back but I was afraid to lose that seat. I was told that the record needs to be split, the miles reinstated for 1 ticket at $150 fee and then rebooked with the outbound in F. I had to argue with the lady that I never in the past had to pay $150 fee when upgrading to F, all I had to do was give additional miles which is not a problem because there are plenty of those in my account. After putting me on hold multiple times she finally came back and said the fee is being waived. She split the record and gave me the new record locator and was ready to hang up when I asked if the previously paid taxes and fees would carry over to the new ticket. She said "Oh I forgot about that.." and proceeded to tell me that I needed to pay $xx.xx in taxes plus $xx.xx for the expedite fee. I was ready to give her my credit card but asked her to please confirm that my previously paid taxes would be refunded and she said they wouldn't be! I told her it doesn't make sense for me to have to pay that twice and my past experience was that the taxes and fees on the first ticket were refunded and I was then charged again for the taxes and fees on the new one. I don't recall what she told me after that but she got really annoyed and basically hung up on me.

Called back AA, gave them the new record locator and found out it was the wrong one because she had read it off incorrectly to me. Gave them the first record locator and they were able to find the new one using that and gave me the correct one. The guy confirmed that it was ticketed and also gave me the CX booking reference. I called CX to request seat assignment for the JFK-HKG flight and am told that this was not ticketed yet by AA - she checks the e-ticket number and says it's still ticketed in Business class.

When I look at my reservation on AA.com it shows Ticketed and the outbound is in F. When I look at my reservation on CX site it shows Confirmed in F as well, however I am not able to select a seat (it says your e-ticket hasn't been issued) and I'm also unable to check in online for the same reason.

What does this all mean? Is the reservation on hold pending ticketing in F? How long does that take (I'm worried, given the flight is tomorrow)? Do I need to call back AA to do anything about this?

Have always had a pretty seamless experience when booking CX J flights and then upgrading to F. This is the first time I'm running into these kinks.

stephem

That is what I have observed as well... I added this and some related info to the wiki.

friedablass

If I have 1 F seat on hold and kvs is showing F2 for that flight, does that include the 1 on hold or is it exclusive of the 1 on hold?

25milesfromhome

If you're using the JL method, seats disappear almost instantly when booked, but I've never tested whether this is also true for holds.

no1cub17

I used the BA method, and the seats would disappear from KVS availability very quickly after hanging up with the AAgent to place on hold, almost immediately. So if KVS is showing FS2, likely there are still 2 F awards left. Lucky!

friedablass

Thanks, will keep my fingers crossed that they release another 1 of those 2!

Any chance CX would release the very last F seat available on a flight to an award with partner airline?

KVS

There is no difference between "held" and "booked" seats -- Availability figures will be adjusted immediately and reflected in the KVS Tool.

dkerr

They have in the past (about two years ago I got all four of my family into F at about 24 hours before departure, taking the last two F seats). But I have also seen where they did not... on another occasion I had my wife and two kids booked JFK-HKG, got 2 into F but one stayed in J... despite F cabin having one empty seat right up to (and after) departure.

DAK

dkerr

1) Upgrading should not incur the $150 fee
2) You pay the new taxes/fees. The old ticket should be sent in for a refund of the taxes and fees.
3) You want to fix the e-ticket problem... though I am surprised that you can't do seat assignment as you should be able to do that even with an un-ticketed booking. Maybe it's because you are within the check-in window timeframe and so it trys to check you in rather than just do a seat change.


I have run into exactly the scenario you described a couple of years ago. At about 24 hours before departure I got all four of us into F by getting the two of us not already in F upgraded from J... AA did their thing and I went off to the airport. This was HKG-JFK but we started out with a (J) connection from SIN. When we got to SIN to check in they had endless trouble issuing the boarding passes for HKG-JFK. Kept insisting that the booking was fine but that there was no F ticket in the record, only J ticket. It took 30-45 minutes for them to get the boarding passes issued.

I really don't know how they fixed it but whatever they did was not "right" because when I got home and chased up the refund of the taxes/fees on the J ticket AA looked things up and said that the J ticket was marked as "used" and the "F" ticket was still unused. I told them that must be wrong, we flew in F. AA did something to fix things for refund of my taxes/fees, but the evidence suggested that CX in SIN forced the issuing of F boarding passes against J ticket numbers. Nice of them to do that, but covered up a problem at AA's end.

I think what you should do is call AA and tell them that CX records are not showing the new ticket number and won't let you check in. Ask them to make sure that it is properly sent over to CX.

AND... If you are unable to online check in, I would arrive early at JFK to give extra time for them to sort out any problems. You're lucky that it is at this end... AA are just a phone call away to help if needed -- that was not really an option for us in SIN.

[edited to add...] Also, recommend you take a printout of your F reservation and e-ticket from AA, with the long 001-xxxxx-x e-ticket number, so that if at the airport you have problems you can show them the actual ticket number.

DAK

friedablass

Thank you for both of your replies.

CX told me the ticket needs to be fixed for my husband or he wouldn't be able to check in.

I did call back AA and told them that CX said they need to fix something to ticket the reservation properly into F. The lady put me on hold for awhile and then came back to get my credit card info - said the old fees would be refunded and fees for this ticket would be charged which is fine and has always been the procedure in the past. She said record locator remains the same. I check the record locator on AA.com while I was on the phone and it showed CANCELED! I asked her 3 times why this is so and she said it's not canceled and is in process of being reticketed, but even now it is still showing as canceled so I wonder if I even still have any reservation/ticket at all . I'm waiting on a call back from AA because I'm all jittery about this....

dkerr

I would be jittery too. If this is CX841 tomorrow morning then it shows F2 at expertflyer (which means two tickets available for sale to people with real money). And CX's own website shows that one of those is available to AsiaMiles members as an award. Whether or not it becomes available to AA is hard to tell because if it was I would have expected it by now. But business is not sold out, nor premium economy so no reason to hold it for op-ups at the airport.

CX831 is F1 and no awards available -- and probably won't be because it is full in business and premium economy, and Y1 in economy. I doubt that they will release the last F seat on that flight when it is so full across all classes of service. CX845 is solid full as well, completely sold out.

DAK