First time on longhaul J, anything I should do?

[kermatu]

It's a good 5 to 10 minute walk between the Emirates and Qantas lounges in Sydney. If Grandmother is in a wheelchair, I'd be sticking to Qantas. If she is assisted by staff, they may only want to take her to and pick her up from Qantas anyway. (No direct experience - just an assumption).

Friday night QF25 left from Gate 10 which is very close to the Qantas lounge. Doesn't mean it will on Saturday, but I'd say chances are it will be closer to QF than EK.

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

The QFi SYD lounge has got a lift to bring you up and down from the lounge to the storey that the departure gates are on.
The QFi J and F lounges are upstairs, one level up.
Dep MEL will be a QFd flight, if your flight MEL - SYD is in J too, then you can get the QFd MEL J lounge, they are going to start major works soon.
From SYD T3 to SYD T1, you will have to use a QF free shuttle bus, and they do cram quite a lot of people into the bus, so your time of transfer, while 2 hours sounds a lot, if they don't move the bus off on time, ie, while their time, your time in the lounge might be less, you will still have to do Au exit immi in SYD.
Up and down a slow lift is no fun!

 

[Happy Trails]

Dep MEL will be a QFd flight, if your flight MEL - SYD is in J too, then you can get the QFd MEL J lounge...

Actually, they should be able to use MEL dom J regardless by virtue of connecting, same day, to international business.


https://www.qantas.com/travel/airli...ness-lounge/global/en?loungeCategory=qcLounge

 

[AustraliaPoochie]

Actually, they should be able to use MEL dom J regardless by virtue of connecting, same day, to international business.
https://www.qantas.com/travel/airli...ness-lounge/global/en?loungeCategory=qcLounge

Aha.
I see.

 

[VPS]

Just have a great time and you'll find it hard to go back

 

[glasszon]

Finally in Japan now, just a brief rundown on how it went:
Arrived at MEL airport about 75 minutes before departure, didn't realise for international connecting flights I need to check in 90 minutes before the flight even if the first flight was domestic, so just rushed the check-in on the phone while on the way to airport
Skipped the J lounge in MEL, when we arrive in SYD the wheelchair transfer was great, they even got a private van to take us from the domestic terminal to international, so we skipped the bus. One of the helper reminded the next person we are in business, maybe that's why we got a private van instead of the bus?

Tried to get into the J lounge for Emirates, but they called them in advance and say we can't use it, so QF J lounge it is. Not bad but as others said it's nothing special.

Once we are on the plane I can't contain my excitement, now I don't know how I can travel in Y again On a different note the food is not great though, the presentation is great but it is either very salty (the Japanese curry) or very dry (pan fried ling).

Might do a more detailed review once I am back in Melbourne, let's hope I can secure an upgrade back to SYD as well.

 

[moa999]

Good to hear you enjoyed the experience.
Shame about the food, normally QF does pretty well, particularly with seafood in my experience, but you can hit a bad one or one a crew leaves in the ovens a little long

 

[glasszon]

Good news! I got upgraded on the way back from HND to SYD for tomorrow's flight for 3 people as well! They must have lots of spare seats as I can't believe I got upgraded on both ways for 3 passengers as a lowly Bronze member.

Do anyone have the seat map for tomorrow's flight on QF 26? I can't select the seats online and want to know which seats are still available before calling them from Japan.

 

[Eija]

seatguru.com is your friend. I see 9 blocked, 1 available.

 

[Himeno]

Good news! I got upgraded on the way back from HND to SYD for tomorrow's flight for 3 people as well! They must have lots of spare seats as I can't believe I got upgraded on both ways for 3 passengers as a lowly Bronze member.

Do anyone have the seat map for tomorrow's flight on QF 26? I can't select the seats online and want to know which seats are still available before calling them from Japan.

There are several times of year where economy on the QF Tokyo flights are overbooked due to Japanese school groups. When this happens, they upgrade people into higher cabins to make room down the back for the group. They'll try to clear point requested upgrades before they need to do opups.

 

[Haplo]

Glad you enjoyed your experience. I was also extremely excited the first time I flew on J for work from SYD to HKG on CX and couldn't sleep properly for the entire week before the flight.

 

[glasszon]

Bad news, finally got a chance to call them and they say it is within 24 hours so they can no longer assign seats, the agent asked me to do online check-in and re-assign the seats that way, but instead I got locked with the worst possible choice of seats (1J, 11A and 12E).

Learned the lesson not to blindly follow the agent's instructions, I called back and asked them to put a note on my booking saying the seats needs to be amended because my grandmother who requires wheelchair and can't speak English is assigned at 1J while the rest of us ended up on the upper deck, so that clearly won't work unless they have a translator and helper on hand throughout the flight.

Anyone got suggestions on what can be done beside turning up to the Airport and plead my case? Just need at least 1 of us to be seated next to my grandmother.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Shame about the food, normally QF does pretty well, particularly with seafood in my experience, but you can hit a bad one or one a crew leaves in the ovens a little long

I say it's pretty normal actually - average food. To get a good meal is an exception in my experience.

 

[Himeno]

If you see this before tonight...

With QF J, there are 3 lounges at HND you can use. 2 JL and 1 CX.

1 JL lounge is near where you enter the concourse after immigration/security. This is a Sakura and F lounge next to each other, across from Gate 112.

The other Sakura lounge and the CX lounge are by the entrance to the newer part of the terminal near Gate 146. This is closer to the gate QF normally use (141, 142 or 143 in my experience).

 

[glasszon]

Thanks for the lounge tips, which JL lounge is better? I think CX lounge is closed until 10pm and that's when my flight departs, so that won't be an option

 

[glasszon]

Just to give a quick summary, I arrived at the airport and the ground crew was wonderful, I told them the computer split our seating, so they quickly reorganized us into row 1 and 2 (yay) and said they could put us all on row 1 if the customer didn't turn up. So we got a pleasant surprise when we got another shiny boarding pass at the gate, all with row 1 on it.

Based on the experience on both trip both the ground and air experience was wonderful (especially coming from someone who never flew J before!), now the hard part is how to ever fly in Y again

Lastly, thanks to everyone's suggestion and help in this thread, it was much appreciated.