A/DONE availability - less than used to be?
 

I have been planning another AONE for next year using EF to check out availability for various possible routings I might take.

Is it my imagination or is confirming A bucket fares becoming harder than it used to be?

For flights over 6 months out I am finding there are certain routes where A just never seems to show, JFK-HKG, JFK-EZE and other where there is limited availability. Even SYD-PER in D is most difficult to snag months out.

JL don't seem to want to play the game at all on most flights I have looked at.

And don't even get me started with BA MRU-LHR where I am waitlisted on flight with no seats assigned and EF shows F9 A9 :rolleyes:

Are routes such as these so profitable with full F pax that the airlines can afford to hold off opening up any A bucket?

The JFK-HKG nonstop has been completely zeroed out for as long as I can remember.

Not sure about AONEs but for my upcoming DONEs I needed to be more flexible than I normally would be.

There do seem to be more routes which airlines figure they can sell most/all premium seats at premium prices. This affects more than just One World - for example NZ got written into the xRWSTARx rules a surcharge to buy up to full fare business after many complaints about lack of availability trans-pacific (and no real alternatives).

I don't know if this is correct, but I remember reading that EF can be very America-centric in it's figures

eg in this situation AA may have and be willing to sell various OW seats in F and A on other airlines through some sort of OW agreement - this being what EF shows, whereas BA Sales only want real cash sales directly through themselves at this stage and won't be giving away A-class and have on their system F9 A0).

Anyone know if this is the case and would be a reason for the conflict between what EF says and what is being given out (by BA??)?

Yes, the issue is called Point Of Sale (POS) availability, and has been discussed here at length, with some very detailed technical answers.

Here's a thread on this topic.

Apart from BA, premium traffic is growing globally so the cheaper buckets either get sold quicker or are held back for J/C.

Not from what I've seen on Expertflyer.

It's possible that the A/D problem - no doubt very real, from all the posts here complaining about it - is very carrier-specific and/or localized. On a recent AONE I had no problem getting three seats LAX-LHR two weeks out, setting up 4 European segments about the same time, and replacing LHR-HKG with CDG-HKG, all at the dates/times I wanted.

OTOH I "know" that I shouldn't expect nonstop JFK-HKG, AA will not likely give me a premium seat on a transcon, BA won't let me fly MRU-LHR, and JAL doesn't want me anywhere near their fleet.

Also, many of us have come to depend on EF for availability data, and for whatever reasons it's not always giving accurate answers - optimistically showing seats not available when we ask for them, other times not showing flights/seats that are available. We need a better tool for global planning.

Slightly OT, xONE has surely become a hot product because there's this whole Internet thing that advises people how to fly around the world in first class, on the cheap. I hear it gets thousands of hits a day, and has newbies and seasoned travelers alike grabbing for their phones to join the parade. Called "flyer chat" or something like that.

Internal to OW, which I keep calling ManyWorlds because the carriers are so very loosely tied and agree on precious little, we keep hearing that division of revenue from an rtw ticket is very spotty. You can imagine the smoke-filled room where they debate that issue amongst themselves, but the result is surely what we see - some airlines don't see xONEx working to their advantage, others do.

Don't forget that there are lots of other ways to circle the globe - it may be time to look at the ad hoc pairings. For instance, you can originate a first-class rtw on EK/UA out of BKK for the grand sum of USD5500, more or less. Is it $3000 less worthy than an $8500 AONE3? Probably.

Well how about that, you are right! thanks for the correction. It's certainly been very hard in past to get an A seat on this flight but right now, as you have noted, the situation is completely different.

It's actually pretty funny. When I first set-up my current AONE6 in February, A was consistently zeroed-out on both CX JFK flights. I waitlised for the CX 830. This was done through BA MRU.

About a week or two later, I noticed that CX was now showing F4A4 on both JFK flights across pretty-much any day I checked. I don't what brought-about that change. Nonetheless, my BA MRU WL still had not cleared. I called AA RTW, gave them the ticket number and had them reserve it for me. No problem at all. The next week I had AA RTW take over the complete reservation.

Poor Availability on AA DFW-ANC, ANC-DFW
 

I am on DONE04, and was unable to secure the seats I wanted for travel to and from ANC.
1) There is only 1 flight a day now (vs. 2 last year, 1 via ORD, other via DFW);
2) On many flights F is sold out.

I kept calling, calling, and calling ever day or so, but an F seat never opened up, so I had to cancel my original plan and reschedule.

the flight from MIA is gone now?

How early were you trying to make this reservation, and for what date? Was this last fall when the schedules first came out (end of October), or was it in the past few months? TIA, as your info will help me plan for next year's purchase.

Mia - Anc
 

Yes, the non-stop MIA-ANC on the Concorde is gone. And the Enterprise transporter is too expensive.