J Award Availability SYD - NRT

[zig]

I am looking for availability on QF21 SYD - NRT for April 2015 and have been checking on a regular basis over the last week or so. There have been no J seats released for April, although there is good availability remaining in March.

Would anyone know why QF haven't released seats on this flight - although I'm looking for J I can't see any Y seats either. Does QF sometimes hold back seats later than 353 days, and release them later?

Also wondering if a WP could check and let me know if there is availability there that I am not seeing due to status.

 

[auriga]

Easter and school holidays?

 

[aaronjames000]

I had a squizz and it shows a few seats available in Y,Z and J for 2 people...

Check below...

 

[zig]

Easter and school holidays?

Could be... I don't generally travel during school holidays, (and in this case actually want the flights for the week after the school holidays) so am not familiar with availability then. Does QF generally not release seats during school holiday? I thought they still released them, but they were harder to get. I have been looking most days around 10am which is when I believe seats are released and haven't seen anything.

 

[vetrade]

Suggest you ring up QF and ask them to check availability because I suspect what you're seeing online is wrong. This time last year I booked a J classic award on QF21 less than 4 months before travel and availability was good so the lack of availability showing up online ATM doesn't seem right. I see that for both Y and J the online platform is throwing up only flights via HKG for April 2015 from SYD - NRT so the fact that the direct QF21 flight doesn't even rate a mention is strange - might be worth doing a dummy booking for a paid fare just to check whether they've suspended QF21 for a while like they did with QF10 from LHR - DXB earlier this year.

 

[vetrade]

I had a squizz and it shows a few seats available in Y,Z and J for 2 people...

Check below...
View attachment 27571
View attachment 27570

I had a look only a few minutes ago and selecting a couple of the available dates I only got flights via HKG - with no listing of the direct flight at all

 

[zig]

Suggest you ring up QF and ask them to check availability because I suspect what you're seeing online is wrong. This time last year I booked a J classic award on QF21 less than 4 months before travel and availability was good so the lack of availability showing up online ATM doesn't seem right. I see that for both Y and J the online platform is throwing up only flights via HKG for April 2015 from SYD - NRT so the fact that the direct QF21 flight doesn't even rate a mention is strange - might be worth doing a dummy booking for a paid fare just to check whether they've suspended QF21 for a while like they did with QF10 from LHR - DXB earlier this year.

I had already done a dummy booking as I was also concerned that they might have stopped flying the route - however QF21 is still flying.

aaronjames000 I assume the J flights you are seeing are the HKG routes being offered, not QF21?

 

[vetrade]

I had already done a dummy booking as I was also concerned that they might have stopped flying the route - however QF21 is still flying.

aaronjames000 I assume the J flights you are seeing are the HKG routes being offered, not QF21?

Looks like it's time to phone a "friend"!

 

[zig]

Looks like it's time to phone a "friend"!

Response from QF today was that they 'felt that the seats haven't been released yet". However they couldn't give me a reason why they wouldn't have been released. Suggested I try again in a week.
I think I will ring again tomorrow and hopefully might get a more informed answer.

 

[JVanSant]

My family and I have been trying to book flights to Japan in January 2015. No economy seats were released in the whole month of January and minimal premium economy. We ended up booking half the family on Japan airlines (which required more points and a night in Sydney as we were coming from Hobart) and half the family in premium economy. My father is still yet to have a return ticket as there are no seats unless he returns 5 days later. We had called Qantas many times through the whole process and were told that they would rather sell the seats than let frequent flyers have them as it produced more revenue for them. We are now out of pocket more than $1500 and 100 000 points more than we originally budgeted. We sent in a letter of complaint and were pretty much told that Classic awards are subject to capacity control and that we could book and any seat award but these would require more points, they also told us to keep trying as more seats may become available. So far no extra seats have been released.

We have found this to be a very disappointing experience with Qantas Frequent Flyer.

 

[zig]

Welcome to the forum JVanSant.
Sorry to hear about the difficulty you had on this route. Did you get the JAL reward seats via QFF, JAL, or AA?

 

[JVanSant]

Did you get the JAL reward seats via QFF, JAL, or AA?

Through QFF. Ended up costing 54 000 points each way which is the same as premium economy.

 

[grussellt]

If you want to keep an eye on online availability of JL awards you can use Awardnexus or join JL's loyalty programme. Awardnexus will provide free searches up to a quarterly limit (or you can pay for more) and it's free to join JL. I can recomend JL772 in J for excellent service and food, particularly if you like Japanese food and sake.

 

[Ausbt]

My family and I have been trying to book flights to Japan in January 2015. No economy seats were released in the whole month of January and minimal premium economy..

Sorry to hear also. I booked in J for Jan 15 at Classic. I made the booking a few months back precisely when the seats were opened up.

 

[serfty]

I booked QF 22 in J for 6th April the day the seats were released on April 18th.

 

[zig]

I booked QF 22 in J for 6th April the day the seats were released on April 18th.

Serfty, I have been checking each day at 10am - this is the correct time isn't it?

 

[serfty]

Serfty, I have been checking each day at 10am - this is the correct time isn't it?

Yes it is.

I was not checking QF21 as I am coming from the USA - I booked a flight in business to LAX for April 1st on April 13th. I plan on booking my USA to Japan flight on AA for 62500 AAdvantage miles First Class in a few weeks.

 

[serfty]

Looking from April 1 on using E/F, I only see X9 on the 19th April.

That is the last day that can be searched.

Looking at QF22 I see X9 every day except the 19th, U1 on the 7th & 13th, U2 on the 14th.

 

[zig]

Looking from April 1 on using E/F, I only see X9 on the 19th April.

That is the last day that can be searched.

Looking at QF22 I see X9 every day except the 19th, U1 on the 7th & 13th, U2 on the 14th.

Thanks Serfty. Those seats definitely aren't showing as being available on QF for my me (SG) I am looking to fly 22nd or 23rd Apr 15, so still a few more days til seats are released for those dates. I'm also not looking for QF21 as I'm planning to return from YVR via HKG.