Scoob72

First of all, many thanks for reading this -- I do appreciate it.


Would any FTers be able to help with regard the following issue?

• I had originally used a BA Amex 2-4-1 voucher to book 2 pax into J on the LHR-HND-LHR route for Feb 2021. Due to Covid, I had to cancel these flights myself for an FTV.
• I was then able, using this FTV, to rebook the same flights for Feb 2022.
• These flights were then cancelled by BA a week ago (Nov 5th, 2021)
• Yesterday, I called BA to ask to be re-routed to Japan on the same dates (Feb 2022) on JAL -- BA, to their credit, did precisely that, opening up revenue seats to complete my re-routing (as no reward seats were available for my dates)

The BA record locator has not changed for these new JAL flights. I did ask BA to let me know what JAL's equivalent record locator would be -- BA told me that JAL's would be identical to the BA one, which I found odd. So, I called JAL and they also told me that their (JAL's) record locator for my flights was the same as BA's.

The problem is this: when I go to JAL's website, it is not recognising my record locator. I have tried everything, even including my middle name (without spaces), but it still won't recognise my booking no matter what I do.

As I wish to reserve seats now, then, having told the JAL CS agent that the JAL website wasn't recognising my booking and that could she reserve my preferred seats from her end, she told me that this was not possible and that I would need to contact BA to reserve my seats. Well, I know for a fact this is not possible -- BA have told me that they can't reserve seats for me for these flights and that I need to call JAL again. Who is right here?!

If anyone had any advice on how I might be able to reserve my seats for these flights, I would be extremely appreciative.

N.b. I'm, of course, aware that Japan will likely not be letting tourists in by Feb '22, but I live in hope!

sammyg901

have you tried either Royal Jordanian or Malaysian Airlines website? I thought JAL had moved to Amadeus now so this should be right, but their systems have always been a bit of a nightmare. I had a similar battle on a Malaysian coded JAL operated flight a couple of years back, can't remember how I ever did manage to select a seat & ended up with a hand written boarding pass at KL!

Voda_boy

With a similar scenario, I recall BA reserving seats for a JAL flight through the “oneworld help desk” within BAEC. Perhaps worth trying again and seeing if that facility still exists. IIRC it is a team that deals with inter airline issues such as this.

nufnuf77

Jal is a peculiar website - they have one way to open domestic and one way for intl PNRs. Make sure you are trying to access the right place. If I recall it asks for PNR but also flight number flight date and surname.

yellow_peril

I also had issues with this once and had to have MR on the end of my first name so it was
Surname: Peril
Firstname:Yellowmr

At least JAL have your booking and could see it so you don't need to be concerned about not being on the flight.

Scoob72

sammyg901 - many thanks for this! Thank goodness it's not just me who's had issues with JAL's website. I'll give your suggestions re RJ & MH a whirl in that case. Many thanks.

And that's quite a story about a hand written boarding pass! Wow.

Scoob72

Voda_boy - thank you for posting this. I certainly had no idea of this facility within BAEC, so that very helpful indeed. I'll have a look into this -- many thanks for the tip-off, very much obliged.

Scoob72

Thanks, nufnuf77 -- and you're not wrong. JAL's website is very clunky, isn't it. You're right, too, about all the inputs they ask for when trying to manage your booking, but to date, even with the correct information, I'm not coming up trumps. If I get it to work, I'll re-post what made the difference.

Thanks again.

Scoob72

yellow_peril -- thank you for this. It did make me laugh -- just the hoops you have to jump through just get something done which should have been much more straightforward. Still, great lateral thinking on your part, I must say!!

And you're right -- at least I'm on the flight.

Thanks again

geronimo

Nothing surprising about this in my experience: it's a frequent issue on JAL, and not solely related to your rebooking by BA.
Priority/preference for seating is given according to a combo of JAL status, JAL ticket and class of fare paid; you'll see seat the plan change for higher fare classes on the JAL site.
For clarity, I can book row 5 (preferred J mini-cabin on 777 ) as BA Gold when travelling on a JAL ticket.

However, when ticketed as a BA flight codeshare on JAL-operated flight, neither BA nor I (nor you!) have access to all available seats.
Have you not been assigned any seat? It should appear on your booking in Exec Club.
On a 777, I'm usually assigned a seat in row 10 or higher and my most recent example was this past week: row 11 on LHR-HND, on an Avios ticket re-booked from BA to JAL.
There was no possibility to change seat assignment on BA site and I was unable to access booking on JAL site until 72 hrs before departure when I could re-assign my seat.
None of the usual workarounds (Finnair, RJ, etc) seem to work.

Re your travel dates, there is talk of allowing tour groups to enter as a pilot project later this year/early next year but current thinking is that individual tourists will only be allowed some time after cherry blossom season ending, so May 2022 onwards.

Scoob72

geronimo - many thanks for replying. This is interesting to hear and echoes a lot of what others above have said, namely how poor JAL's website seems to be.

To answer your question, no, I wasn't assigned any seats -- looking on my BAEC account before tonight's 3-day outage, no seats had been assigned. However, using the workaround suggested by Sammy (above) this evening, I have managed to select seats on my outbound 787 LHR-HND flight via RJ.com, though couldn't select seats on the return journey as it said seatmap not available -- I looked on MH's website, too, but the same seatmap unavailable message was similarly displayed there. Not sure why this would be, although I do notice that it is a different aircraft (777) on the return.

Sad to hear the current projected likelihood of Japan's opening-up being post-Cherry blossom season, but, in denial, I'm clinging on to hope.

Would you by any chance know how I can find out if my ticket is upgradeable with airmiles? It was originally a BA 241 booking, which then became an FTV, that was subsequently used to book return LHR-HND-LHR flights, that were then cancelled last week, but then BA re-routed/-booked me onto JAL flights two days ago where revenue tickets were used to complete my booking as no JAL award seats were available for my proposed flights. With this convolution, I have no idea whether my JAL tickets are even upgradeable and, if they are, how I'd find out and whether it would be so with airmiles (JAL's or BA's) or only as cash.

geronimo

IMHO, the website works fine for JAL's direct customers. They're just not so interested if you're spending your money with someone else... And yes, I know that it's a codeshare on a JV route so you'd hope for better.

From my very limited knowledge, I would very surprised if you can amend this ticket in any way, even for cash, particularly if the underlying ticket is a 241.
JAL don't offer pre-departure cash upgrades and BA doesn't control the cash or miles inventory on JAL.
If borders are still closed in Feb and you have to rebook, it could be the time to discuss any options with BA.
Alternatively, drop a line to ExecClub now to see if they can think of any options.

ScienceTeacher

If a booking require a reticket it can fail to show up on partner websites.

Experienced this myself last week and once reissued; it showed up on MH and AY.

Can you see a ticket number in the app?

Scoob72

geronimo - again many thanks for the comprehensive reply. It did make me laugh about the JV comment -- yes, perhaps you're right, all's well when JAL direct customers are logged in.

That's a good suggestion regarding contacting Exec Club about any possible upgrades, especially with what's become such an involved ticket.

Thanks for all your insights, geronimo -- I'm genuinely very grateful.

All the best

Scoob72

ScienceTeacher - many thanks for this. Fortunately, I can see the ticket numbers on the RJ.com website (a suggestion from a kind responder above) and have managed to book seats on the outbound, but there is no seatmap for the return leg. I might try Finnair, though, given your suggestion as I've not tried that yet -- thank you.