tfizzle

I just booked YVR to TPE with a stop over in TYO for about $2000 in business class.

rustykettel

Non-full fare classes are back now for my routes. Shows filed 9/21. @yvrcnx are you seeing more normal pricing for your dates?

yvrcnx

Thank you for the update @rustykettel. I had been checking fares but they were all the high fares and I ended up purchasing China Airlines to Denpasar in Premium Economy for CAN$ 1,250 which was a special fare and quite good since I didn't see this kind of low PE fares for a long time.

Something else which can be quite a challenge with JAL is to be able to book fares which allow to pre-assign seats and often fare classes are N or O which don't allow to choose seats until online check-in and so far my experience has been that at online check-in time, there is very little left to choose from.
I hope that one day JAL will update their website so that we can choose fares which don't or do allow to choose seats.
Right now if it shows the lowest N fare for any segment, the only way to get the higher fare is by going usually to the FLEX fare which is often more than Business Class.
That is really the only reason I don't like booking JAL and I have often wondered why in such and amazing and technically advanced country, the airline's websites are so consumer unfriendly. ANA is quite similar in that regards.

doglynx

Honestly with its old config 788, except the seat width, JAL's not too outstanding in hardware.
CI's premium eco is a good product though, and that price sounds like an excellent deal

yvrcnx

The hard product might not be the most current, especially IFE but because there are usually only 2 of us traveling (my son and I), for longhaul I always choose airlines which offer a 2 - 4 - 2 or 2 - 3 - 2 configuration and since most now fly their 787, the choices are few unless I choose one of the Chinese carriers which I did once in Business Class but would not do it again.

Yes, the China Airlines deal was a really good one. The best I could see most of the year was around CAN$ 2,000 and down to about CAN$ 1,600 and when I saw the $ 1,200 fare in PE all the way to DPS on their new A350 and B777, I couldn't resist.