Availability of 1st-class RTW seats?
 

I'd appreciate members' comments on airlines' policies re availability of first-class seats in the RTW category, especially on long-hauls with beds.

We used to do rtw's using a non-alliance SQ/BA combination which was/is inexpensive and met our needs fine. Then SQ joined the bed group and decided their 12 seats were too precious a commodity to allocate to more than one cheapskate per flight. As a threesome, we were most unwelcome on SQ, so we were pleased to discover OW and substitute CX for SQ.

Now it's time to start thinking about the annual trek again, and some time ago I saw comments suggesting that CX was getting less generous in seat allocation. Any comments on them or the others?

I have found that CX is pretty generous when compared to SQ. Not quite as many seats as BA but pretty good!

The best way to check is to go to ITN in the advance mode and look at seat availability. Look for 'A' class numbers which is for First RTW. You find probably find that on certain times on certain CX routes they have fewer number of 'A' class seats. For example, CX has (I think) two flights a day from HKG-LAX. One of them normally has more seats than the other. Also depends on the day of the week. Hope this helps!

Hmmm...lets see.

ba lon-syd
cx syd-hkg
cx hkg-jfk
la lax-scl
la scl-ccs-scl
la scl-lim-scl
la scl-lax
aa lax-lon
ba lon-cai-lon

12 flights, it looks like. I think these are all sleepers. I am not entirely sure about AA, but I am 99% positive. They changed the seating config on AA.com from a 2-1-2 to a 1-2-1, which should mean sleepers, from my understanding. *From what I remember* (it has been a couple of months) BA was pretty wide open, CX was a bit less than BA, but no problems. AA was fine, and LA was no problem *except* that the A inventory is limited by the fact that there are only 5 F seats. I think they only released 2, or maybe three. The only place that I had problems was on LanChile SCL-IPC, which was severely booked. So I switched to CCS, and was happy as a clam. Also had a problem SYD-PPT, but that was a flight problem (or lack thereof), not a space problem.

I am traveling during early swing season/late peak season in most places, from what I can see. Just as a point to add, I have a lot of non-sleeper (where it was not an option) on QF, CX, and AA, and there was no problems at all with getting seats.

Good luck.

yes, cx is pretty generous on these seats. however, their HKG-JFK is always sold out (not that they r not generous, just hte demand is too high)

I may disagree with the JFK-HKG flight is always sold out -- I was able to get 1 free seat (award travel) and one RTW seat) on that flight.

--Jim

Thanks, bagold. I didn't realize I could get availability on-line by class that easily. Off-topic, why is SQ so stingy with their F seats?

Because they can be.

Re. hkg-jfk, I had little problem with that flight, from what I remember.

as a DM member i waited for a couple weeks for my first class seat on jfk-hkg last nov. i guess that was a particular week then. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif anyway, so we agree that cx play witht eh rule?

I think it is agreed that they all do... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/tongue.gif

Looking in ITN, I can see A class (and D class for business) on QF, BA, and CX, but AA doesn't appear to publish this inventory. Am I missing something? Or, must you call the AA RTW desk in order to get availability?

I've always had pretty good luck with two exceptions, AA and LA.

Not much problem with AA on domestic segments, but on int'l flights, they have a tendency to hold a lot of seats for full F until shortly before the day of departure. This makes it extremely difficult to plan an itinerary which guarantees you an AA seat in F on certain segments.

Also, LA can be difficult since some (all?) of their aircraft only have 5 first class seats.

At the end of the day, things usually end up working out on both carriers.

On AA, "A" class inventory has multiple roles. It is discounted FC, upgrade from J to FC, and RTW inventory. Because AA considers it to be a form of upgrade inventory, they do not publish it. I've found that AA availability is "A" is normally pretty good. Getting an "X" seat is noticeably harder...

OT to this thread, but I have to disagree with the poster who said that SQ limits discount first class because "they can." In our experience their first class cabin is no more often full than anyone else's, and we've been denied discount space hours before departure even though the flight was wide open. I don't know how they manage the back cabin, but up front it doesn't seem that they've sent anyone to capacity-control school.