I am just about ready to spring the big bucks for a RTW explorer ticket for me and my wife but found out that on some of the routes I want to fly, the maximum amount of F seats they release are 1.

I was sort of hoping to try out some of the premium products such as CX F from NY to HKG, but it appears every day the maximum amount of First Class seats they will sell is 1. Don't think my wife would like that.

How do most people find availability. I can be flexible with the dates, but was hoping to fly with my wife.

This is particuarly a problem with longhaul flights on CX.

You are lucky to find 1 A seat on the days you checked. On many days I checked, CX830/830 showed A0 several months out. CX889/889 tend to have better availability in A. That said, CX is pretty good at releasing A seats closer to departure. You could book one A seat first, then wait for them to release another one later. Or you could wait until close to departure to book, although it could be as close as a few days prior.

Availability is much worse than it was a year ago ... enough so that I am not sure A is worth it over D as wind up in D most of the time even with an A fare. Few routes still offer first class, some airlines (such as BA) sell out due to giving F for J price, and the premium routes such as SYD-JFK or JFK-HKG are restricted to 10% of the cabin for A inventory. Being flexible in dates helps tremendously, if you can tolerate a slippage of a day or 2 or a different routing you can always find space though maybe not 2 on the same flight. A further complication is that as planes have been reconfigured to eliminate an F cabin some routes that offer F are no longer booking it months ahead just in case the planes are redeployed and the F seats disappear (this seems to be the CX case, they aren't sure of availability so don't sell it -- while a year ago this never happened, you could book a year ahead).

I have done 2-3 AONE3s each year for the last 4 years, and I have never failed to get on a flight I wanted to get on except when delays caused missed connections, but even then I have been able to get the optimal reroute without difficulty. Maybe I just pick strange times/places, but all the recent ones have included HKG-JFK.

Occasionally I have had to invoke status (Diamond) but not often.

Looking ahead a few months I note that Cathay is still showing A4 on LAX-HKG, for example. That's all they ever show. The "things are worse this year" worried me, and it may certainly be true, but in the past it's been unusual not to be able to get the A3 we normally need. It's certainly best to book well in advance, naturally.

In the past BA has been the easiest carrier to get A on. If they're giving it away to C pax of course the seats will vanish sooner.

You all seem to forget that AA is the worst in getting A seats within North America as that class code is shared amongst upgraded passengers, and discounted F class tickets.

Not really - I do 6 segments in NA on AA on all my AONE3s (well OK, 5 sometimes if I do a YVR-JFK on CX) and I haven't had a problem there either (even when I haven't been EXP).

I'm in the exact same boat-- I virtually never have trouble finding -A- inventory as long as I'm a tiny bit flexible and/or persistent. And I very frequently book at the very last minute-- usually just a few days in advance, as opposed to far in advance. I just never have any problems to speak of-- except with LA, where getting confirmed in -A- can be very tough (but w/ only a mere handful of seats, I guess it's somewhat understandable.)

AA RTW desk can be very helpful in getting a seat turned over to -A- for it's customers, and I've even had BA RTW desk do the same, even w/o any status on them (beside OW Emerald, of course.)

BTW, just today re-issued an ex-CAI AONE5, booked through AA RTW, and re-issued at Park Avenue CTO, NYC. They are really good with re-issues, we're lucky (NY members) to have them.

The problem that I have is being on a very tight schedule. This often means I have to fly ORD-FRA for example and not ORD-LHR-FRA ... and ORD-FRA does not have F as it is a 763 on AA. Getting A inventory for AA domestic flights is trivial, yield management will always release it. More frustratingly a few specific routes are really tight for A inventory, for example SYD-JFK or HKG-JFK (but I've never had trouble getting one for the HGK-LAX or HKG-SFO flights on CX, so having that much flexibility helps). Once I had to go HKG-NRT-SJC as everything else was sold out on the specific date (but available the next day, however I couldn't wait a day). But I have observed that many BA flights trans-Atlantic are full in F and it is in part due to a "buy J and fly F one way" offer which expires in December (but probably will be renewed). The problem is that those are booked as taking priority over A inventory despite being J sale (presumably quite a bit more profit in that J sale than A). Finally LHR-CPT is hopeless in A -- there are entire months when nothing is available (but you can go LHR-JNB so it isn't that bad). The inventory has definitely tightened a lot in the past year; enough so that my last AONE4 had precisely *2* flights in A, the rest were in D!

I am not sure that 10% figure is completely accurate. On the SYD-JFK route, QF has 14 F seats in their 744's. So 10% would be 1.4 seats, so I can only assume you mean A inventorhy is restricted to either 1 (7%) or 2 (14%). However, the first random date I checked (and I specifically avoided holiday perionds) show F9 A9 for QF107 between SYD-JFK. And the return QF108 JFK-SYD shows the same for the random return date I selected 2 weeks later. Those were for flight in the first quarter of 2005.

Checking the same flight for later this month (say Nov 19 and 21), I see QF107 showing F2 A2, and QF108 showing F6 A5. So this non-scientific and random selection of dates implies that QF are making most of their F seats between SYD and JFK available to A fare ticket holders.

I have no idea what CX does regarding A availability and did not check.

Hi,

BA do not book the full J2RT upgrade to first over the other A class tickets. A class has to be available at the time of booking. BA has quite good loads in F most of the time at the moment and certainly something like LAX has always been full when I have been on-board.

Last year's figures for the J upgrade offer were 3500 pax taking advantage. This is less than one per longhaul flight during the offer period (OK, 1 was me, but don't worry, it was somebody else paying otherwise I would have done a cheaper deal).

Remember to waitlist in all sides of a 1W codeshare. Sometimes the other will come up earlier and you can take that. Remember to get your "entitlement" entered into the system. That way you can be confirmed D and then take the spare F seat on the day, not just travel in D with an empty F seat available.

As for LAN, well there is some A availability but the QFs are always trying to get a QF A seat on the SCL to NZ/Australia and that takes some doing. However, if you can get the LA seat allocated then all you are arguing about is bonus mileage.

A vs F inventory seems to be quite malleable. I just booked A on a flight to LHR showing F2 A0 J2 ... I told the CX desk I was thinking of buying an A ticket but there was no availability the day I was planning to travel. The agent said: "well Sir then we MAKE some A class available for you". ^ I am now booked for next week and the flight shows F1 A0 J2 ... . i am MPC diamond.

so go figure ... it still seems easier to have it your way on YOUR airline, oneworld or not, doesn't it?

That is a specific Diamond benefit. In fact it was one of the reasons given me by CX when I asked why I would want to be Diamond when I am already Emerald. It wasn't made clear what conditions allow releasing the seat.
I guess I fly the wrong flights on the wrong dates. Maybe month/quarter end has something to do with it. I have lots of trouble finding seats in A, but I usually have 3 or 4 flights to co-ordinate, so if one is not available the others can't be used. In 2003 there was no problem with these bookings, in 2004 it takes multiple attempts and rerouting, so the availability is way down from my standpoint. Bad enough that my last AONE4 had only 2 A sectors, the rest were D. I guess I have to spend more time finding the flights, or have less tight of a schedule.
BTW, that 3500 figure is very disingenious (just noticed you did qualify it as last year -- it wasn't a problem last year, it seems like a problem this year!). It might be true, but excludes all the contracted upgrades (buy J, fly F -- lots of companies now have that deal, hence the "high loads in F" albeit at J revenue ... VS has had a big effect with their new suites in Upper Class and this is BA's counter attack). Feel rather foolish actually paying for an F ticket on BA these days, nobody else does.

I think the only A seats you'll find hard to come by are those at LAN CHILE especially between SYD and AKL.

Agreed Lan is hard- esp AKL-SCL - also having trouble getting A on SCL MAD flights- In general LA is reluctant to release any A seats - Can have F totally open and will not release anything in A. Also had an issue with them a couple years ago when I was standing by for an A seat on SCL -GRU and they gave it to a J class passenger on an upgrade (I was confirmed D but had an A coupon for the sector) saying they had priority. I begged to differ.

CX A seats on 830 -831 are virtually impossible to get - never seem to have them. Was on waitlist for 3 weeks and could not confirm even with my Invitation status- that has never happened to me before. In the end only got on by standby at CLK. The direct JFK flights seems to be filling up plenty well without us cheap A classers.