Hi,
I've been using the Qantas and BA search tools looking for award flights between Tokyo and Seoul. The only OW airline on this route is JAL.

So far both the BA and Quanta searches have crapped out. It is not an issue of availability (unless there is nothing between now and December) but it seems like the flight data is not in the system. In particular, Quantas gives a "We could not find a fare for the requested itinerary. (# 66002)" error.

Any suggestions besides calling in?

I'm using AA miles if it makes a difference.

A question for the AA forum as about AA miles

Call AA. If you want to do your homework before that, sign up for JAL mileage bank. What dates are you looking for (and what cabin)? Other than the odd date here and there, availability (Y or J) doesn't appear to be an issue - with the caveat that I have no idea how well JAL availability corresponds to AA-miles availability.

OK, let me rephrase. This is not about AA miles. This is about the Quantas and BA FF search tools which have always been useful for finding generally one world availability when one uses partner miles on another airline.

The issue that I'm seeing is that the Quantas/BA search engines do not seem to show any JAL flights. I'm curious whether this is a known issue and how folks have dealt with this. A phone call is one obvious answer and I'm curious whether there are others.

Thanks...

Which fare class are you looking for? They don't have F flights for Tokyo-Seoul, only J or Y, or if you're lucky a long-haul 777 in which the normally F seat is open as J.

Try searching for HND-GMP as well as NRT-ICN.

Each freq program has it own rules. Just because you can see availblity one carrier does not mean its available to you. Often does, but not always. IIRC CX does not show on the QF ffp, but a phone call to QF can at times get a CX reward flight with QF points

The airline you mean is Qantas, not Quantas. It is an acronym so this is why there is no U.

And you are right, the BA and QF websites only show a fraction of available flights. They are not a universal tool to see worldwide award availability.

The simple answer to your question is that at the moment, the Qantas website doesn''t show award availability for anyone except QF or BA flights (and you get the error message as you describe above)

If you're looking for any other oneworld availability using QF points you have to ring the service centre. (For example there is usually plenty of CX availability out of Australia but the only way you can get this is to phone QF.)

Regards

lme ff

Well almost. It shows AA availability too.

As someone already said, sign up for JAL mileage bank. At least then you'll be able to see what JAL has available ..... with the caveat that JAL availability may not correspond with AA-miles availability.

Thanks for all the feedback. I'm looking for J or F class but mostly was curious as to the JAL not showing up in the BA/Qantas search tools. I've had good luck in the past with them showing BA, Qantas, RJ, LAN, and AA availability but this was the first time I was looking for JAL flights. Ahh well, I thought one-stop searching was a Quixotic quest but I've always found it useful to have specific flights to book rather than letting a rep. search for you.

I've played around with the JAL search engine but as some have pointed out, availability listed there does not mean availability for miles on a partner airline. Although a search of other threads suggests that if seat availability is listed there (actual seats not the waiting list) than AA miles can secure it. I'll see.

Thanks again.

ps. And yes, qantas NOT quantas. Ms. Perkins' (my 3rd grade teacher) drill looms large in my mind, "Q is always followed by U" SMACK! I know better in terms of qantas but sometimes Ms. Perkins looms large!

Sounds like you should have given her some qat to chew on...

By the way, just because QF is not showing any LA award seats doesn't mean they don't exist. I had this situation PPT-IPC where there are nothing available online or on the phone through QF but availability through LA.