JAL Booking Change / Downgrade

[jlzrbm]

Hi all,
Got a bit of a problem - made a booking for my mum and dad (who are older) to head up to London via Tokyo in JAL Premium Economy (and got it very cheap - about $1400 PP each way, which is awesome).
They've just called me and it turns out they had their dates mixed up, and were actually meant to be heading up a month earlier than what they've booked.
I've logged into their booking to have a look at booking change, but it's only giving me the option of moving to other Premium Economy tickets, which are significantly more expensive (gonna double their ticket price almost). Realistically, in order to afford this, they're going to need to downgrade (and luckily, I can see that there's pretty cheap JAL economy flights up and back). Fully aware there'll be a change fee involved.

So few questions:
1. Does anyone know if it's possible to call JAL and do a booking change to a different class?
Otherwise I'm going to have to refund the bookings and start again (which isn't ideal, as I made them on my credit card getting a signup bonus, so there's additional complexities with that getting refunded etc. The card is also currently close to maxxed out.)
2. Does anyone know how long it takes a Japan Airlines refund to come through (if it comes to that)? It says up to 2 months on the website (I'm trying to decide if I should pay the card off or just leave the charge there to get refunded from JAL if it comes to that).

PS I checked, double checked, and got my folks to read out their dates multiple times (they'd also originally gone to a travel agent with the same incorrect dates) - I guess this is what happens.

TIA

 

[tdimdad]

Economy on JL is one of the better ones in the air and your parents will be well looked after. Also, check the seat pitch as at least their B78x's have more space than on many other carriers.

On the refund, the only time I've had money refunded by JL they were back on my CC account in two days (and a hotel refund came in a day). Say whatever you wish about some of the complexities of how Japanese run things, but they get things usually done very promptly.

 

[jlzrbm]

Economy on JL is one of the better ones in the air and your parents will be well looked after. Also, check the seat pitch as at least their B78x's have more space than on many other carriers.

On the refund, the only time I've had money refunded by JL they were back on my CC account in two days (and a hotel refund came in a day). Say whatever you wish about some of the complexities of how Japanese run things, but they get things usually done very promptly.

Thanks! I'm thinking I'm going to try calling JAL first to see if I can do it over the phone - if not I'll do the refund route.

 

[Forg]

I know this is no help to you or them now, but wow that was a good price for Premium, ~$2400 return at the moment? I’ve been intermittently checking prices to Europe for the last year now, and while I’ve seen some J discounts starting to happen I’ve not seen prices that good for Y+, especially when you add in the fact you can have a shower in the lounge in Japan halfway with JAL Y+.

 

[jlzrbm]

I know this is no help to you or them now, but wow that was a good price for Premium, ~$2400 return at the moment? I’ve been intermittently checking prices to Europe for the last year now, and while I’ve seen some J discounts starting to happen I’ve not seen prices that good for Y+, especially when you add in the fact you can have a shower in the lounge in Japan halfway with JAL Y+.

It was about $3k return per person, which is an insanely good deal, especially with JAL. Interestingly, the fare didn't come up in any search engine that I used - I was only able to locate it directly using the JAL website, so maybe that's the trick.

Looking now it's definitely more expensive, although there are tickets for around $1400 going up in JAL premium throughout the year.

Also - update - called JAL, you can't change a booking to a different fare class, so I've requested a refund. Very annoying.

 

[tdimdad]

Hopefully they process the refund swiftly and you can get onto booking the new tickets.

 

[tdimdad]

JL used to have those PE to Europe return for $2,400 deals for quite long during pandemic years. Now it's hard to get under $2,800 but quite easy to find $3,500 even for peak season. The image is for June/July which is the holiday season in that corner of the world and similar fares are available for December/January.

Once I secure the OW status through QFF, it's time to go and enjoy JL again.

 

[jlzrbm]

FYI - I got my refund over the weekend - took less than two days!

 

[Albert Hoffman]

One can also add a stopover either, or both ways for the same price.