Originally Posted by anabolism (Post 37647453)

I haven't priced an RTW with all airlines, but my experience suggests that JL may be cheaper than AA, BA, or QR. A couple of times when I used an AA SWU to upgrade an AA segment on a JL-issued RTW, AA threw conniptions, saying JL hadn't charged all the carrier overcharges and AA couldn't reissue without collecting them, but I was eventually able to get them to do a straight reissue.

JL is more cumbersome to deal with for an RTW than AA, for sure. With AA, you call, wait, and get an RTW-experienced agent. With JL, if you call the U.S. number exactly when they open at 5am Pacific, you usually have no or a short wait, but it's luck of the draw if you get a Los Angeles or overseas agent. The L.A. agents all seem capable and experienced with RTWs, while an overseas agent will first try to help, then put you on hold to "consult the relevant department," then transfer you. If lucky, they transfer you to L.A. or an agent in Japan who knows RTWs. If unlucky, it's one more transfer. A transfer typically involves a lengthly hold (I call when I have other stuff to do while the call is on speaker). If you don't call the U.S. number the instant they open, there is usually a lengthly wait. You can also call Japan, but they often bring a translator on the line.

That said, I have purchased several RTWs over the past few years with JL, including fAONE5 and DONE5, with open-dated segments, and have made changes multiple times. It just isn't as easy as with AA.

Originally Posted by ernestnywang (Post 37647072)

anabolism JL is notorious for always directing pax to marketing carriers for seat selection as a policy. It should be very simply done by the TA who can open seat map and select or at least use SSR code to specify.

Originally Posted by donotblink (Post 37647460)

So I have a bit of an interesting thought here...I'm almost always buying LONE3's from AA, and then applying a single systemwide upgrade for both transatlantic, and transpacific segments. When I apply systemwide upgrade American has to take over the ticket. I often need to pay $125 once or twice to make changes to the ticket... I'm just not always very good at planning exactly which cities are planning to be in. Do you think that maybe I can keep the underlying better pricing from Japan Airlines and then have American Airlines service it? My thinking is that this might not be the case because tariff will end up repricing when making voluntary changes, but maybe I'm not thinking about it correctly. Do you happen to have a ballpark of how much money I might save?

Originally Posted by anabolism (Post 37647482)

AA will charge a fee for taking over another airline's itinerary, but if you're applying an SWU and nothing else, then AA should reissue the ticket with no charge. At that point it's an AA itinerary, so from there out you should be able to call the RTW desk and make changes with no other charges. The only hitch is if someone at AA's tariff desk thinks the issuing airline didn't charge all the carrier overcharges. If that happens, you may be able to reach one of the long-time RTW agents who will call someone they know at tariff to do it as an even exchange or only for the reroute fee if you're changing the ticketed points)

Originally Posted by anabolism (Post 37647470)

I've had JL agents insist they could only do seat assignments on their own flights, and others (especially the L.A.-based agents) who happily assigned seats for all segments, JL, OA prime, and OA codeshares.

I have been able to assign seats for OA flights using JL's booking management web tab, although it's a bit tricky since a JL-created record requires entering last name, firstnamemiddlenameMR, with first and middle names mushed together and with "Mr" also mushed in there.

Originally Posted by donotblink (Post 37647471)

I just realized from this thread https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/onew...icket-how.html that Japan Airlines charges a fee for the changes that don't involve routing changes which would be a big negative compared to American Airlines.

Originally Posted by ernestnywang (Post 37647521)

I put a space between my given name and "MR" in the PNR and did not need to put the "MR" in the JL booking management portal when accessing my reservation there.

Originally Posted by anabolism (Post 37646757)

A JL agent should be able to find you by looking in the manifest of the JL flight by its flight number and date.

Originally Posted by ernestnywang (Post 37647072)

anabolism is spot on! When the booking goes through AS before being passed JL (Amadeus), likely another Amadeus record got generated just for the JL flight, especially if the TA uses Sabre. JL is notorious for always directing pax to marketing carriers for seat selection as a policy. It should be very simply done by the TA who can open seat map and select or at least use SSR code to specify.

Originally Posted by A1pax (Post 37647749)

This is another puzzling question. The change in dates for 2 flights has caused so much drama with advance seat selection for a codeshare flight. So I checked expertflyer and it showed JL flight for the new date J9 C9 D7 (which TA could only see D1). I contacted TA to see if he could check again that there were at least D2 to book us (and cancel AS codeshare flight). His answer was that when he went directly to JL he could see that, but when he tried to book (with the CX flight) it zeroed out the D fare in JL so he could not book it. My question: Was this because it was a 'married segment'? Then TA said even if he could go back booking JL (as originally for a new date) this might consider a re-routing and I would be up for a change fee etc. There was no change fee with the date change (which triggered booking from JL to AS codeshare). It is a hassle to argue with TA, so I will accept what's done with an inconvenience of not being able to select seats on AS codeshare flight. But curios to know why expertflyer showed seats available and TA could not book them? Still learning about RTW ticket rules ...

Originally Posted by A1pax (Post 37647643)

Thanks, ernestnywang. TA said he could not select seats for codeshare flights (could only do it for flights booked directly with operating airlines - which was done without any drama). What is SSR code?

Originally Posted by anabolism (Post 37648119)

The lower 'D' availability could be because of married segments or a point of sale restriction or a type of fare restriction or a point of origin restriction. You can check for married segment inventory in EF by doing a flight availability query using the connection point. You can use EF's point of sale control to see if the availability is different for different points of sale. The past few years I've seen a lot of 'D' (and 'A') inventory restrictions for xONEx fares. In those cases you should at least be put on the waitlist.

Originally Posted by ernestnywang (Post 37648909)

I will add that Point of Commencement (POC) matters, too, and I believe there isn't an easy way to check against that unless someone has GDS (preferably Amadeus) access.