Sydney to Vancouver on JAL

[Pug1]

Hi everyone, we are booked on a cruise that departs Vancouver and ends in Tokyo in August 2019. The ship leaves YVR around 17.00 hours on 14 August 2019. We are hoping to get a one way Syd to YVR on JAL on our QF points but happy to pay if that fails. My question is has anyone done those flights and is the very short 1 hour 15 minute transit in Narita too risky? We want JAL772 from Syd that arrives into Narita at 17.05 and JAL18 departs for YVR at 18.20. Not sure of it's the same plane, probably not. We are thinking of flying up the day before the ship leaves YVR so that we can have a night either in Tokyo if we miss the conection or YVR if we make it. Obviously we can't afford to miss the cruise departure but neither do we want to add any more time to the trip by arriving earlier. The JAL award flights should be available on the 17th September so we want to grab them if available in J. Any advice from those who have done this conection appreciated.

 

[Cossie]

The boss flew JL772 then JL18 from Sydney to Vancouver in May, no problem with transfer time. She still had enough time to visit the lounge.

 

[Himeno]

YVR-TYO cruise August next year... sounds like you're on the same boat as my parents.
They are looking at flying into LAX or SFO then traveling up to YVR, cruse to Japan, then fly back from Osaka.

 

[Pug1]

The boss flew JL772 then JL18 from Sydney to Vancouver in May, no problem with transfer time. She still had enough time to visit the lounge.

thank you Cossie. Sounds reassuring. Just hope my lowly bronze Qantas ff gives us the points flights on those JAL ones. Might have to be up at 2 minutes past midnight on the 17th!

 

[Pug1]

YVR-TYO cruise August next year... sounds like you're on the same boat as my parents.
They are looking at flying into LAX or SFO then traveling up to YVR, cruse to Japan, then fly back from Osaka.

It's the Viking "North Pacific Passage" cruise and would love to meet your parents if it's the same one. We have an aversion to transitting the US and we like JAL. If all else fails we would probably pay for the Air Canada direct flight however that's a bit gruelling for us, having done it a few times.Incidentally we're going to Japan in November and trying the newish Syd-Osaka direct Qantas service on their A330's. We paid for that and also used our Amex $450 credit on the Amex Qantas Ultimate card - gotta get every benefit!

 

[pyffii]

thank you Cossie. Sounds reassuring. Just hope my lowly bronze Qantas ff gives us the points flights on those JAL ones. Might have to be up at 2 minutes past midnight on the 17th!

booked some JAL flights earlier this year and they were released at 11.00am Sydney time

 

[Ken1]

booked some JAL flights earlier this year and they were released at 11.00am Sydney time

I haven't booked JL flights but when booking QF, BA, CX etc through QFF flights are released at 11am Sydney time during daylight savings and 10am Syd time at other times of the year so JL should be the same. I booked some flights through CX last week that were released at 10am.

 

[pyffii]

I haven't booked JL flights but when booking QF, BA, CX etc through QFF flights are released at 11am Sydney time during daylight savings and 10am Syd time at other times of the year so JL should be the same. I booked some flights through CX last week that were released at 10am.

booked our JAL tickets in mid June and for me the relevant flights became available at 11.00am but in any event try 10.00 and if nothing comes up then try again at 11.00am !!!

 

[TomVexille]

Had a pretty tight connection at NRT last year from AA-JL (due to the AA flight being a little delayed), and the transfer was pretty quick, we ended up with enough time for a quick lounge visit for some curry

 

[Pug1]

thanks to eveyone for advice. I'll be on-line every hour before and after 330 days to secure flights!!

 

[Pug1]

booked our JAL tickets in mid June and for me the relevant flights became available at 11.00am but in any event try 10.00 and if nothing comes up then try again at 11.00am !!!

is that 11am on the morning of day 330 minus the flight day, Sydney time or Japan time??

 

[drron]

We used to fly JAL regularly BNE-NRT-JFK when our son lived in NYC.The connection was 1.05.Never missed a connection in nearly 20 trips.Once the BNE flight was late.We were met as we got off and taken to the front of transit security and straight to the JFK plane.
If you did miss they would put you up at NRT for the night if in J-no F on the BNE flight then.

 

[pyffii]

is that 11am on the morning of day 330 minus the flight day, Sydney time or Japan time??

sydney time

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Hi everyone, we are booked on a cruise that departs Vancouver and ends in Tokyo in August 2019. The ship leaves YVR around 17.00 hours on 14 August 2019. We are hoping to get a one way Syd to YVR on JAL on our QF points but happy to pay if that fails. My question is has anyone done those flights and is the very short 1 hour 15 minute transit in Narita too risky? We want JAL772 from Syd that arrives into Narita at 17.05 and JAL18 departs for YVR at 18.20. Not sure of it's the same plane, probably not. We are thinking of flying up the day before the ship leaves YVR so that we can have a night either in Tokyo if we miss the conection or YVR if we make it. Obviously we can't afford to miss the cruise departure but neither do we want to add any more time to the trip by arriving earlier. The JAL award flights should be available on the 17th September so we want to grab them if available in J. Any advice from those who have done this conection appreciated.

Flying a day early will give you the security and peace of mind. The connecting time itself is fine, but that doesn't allow for inbound delays.

 

[Ken1]

thanks to eveyone for advice. I'll be on-line every hour before and after 330 days to secure flights!!

I agree with MEL-Traveller about flying a day early. When flying to join a cruise I would definitely aim to be in Vancouver at least a day early in case of any delays as you never know what could happen. Look at QF9 a few days ago that had to return to PER after being in the air for a couple of hours because of an aggressive passenger. I haven't heard what time it then departed the next day but if anyone on that flight had needed to have arrived at LHR on time for something important that day they would have missed it.

A few years ago we were flying SYD-HNL on HA and staying there for a week before a cruise to sail from there back to SYD. Two hours into the flight we had to divert to BNE because a passenger had a medical problem. We arrived in HNL around 4 hours late and there were some passengers who were on a 7 night Hawaiian Islands cruise the same day and they should have just arrived in time but I know some of them were stressing about it.

Regarding booking award flights - you mentioned that the flight you need should be available on 17 Sep so I would check every day until then to see which flights are released that day and to confirm the time they become available so by the time the 17th comes you'll have an idea of the release patterns. Since 13 Aug 2019 should be released on 17 Sep, 12 Aug would be released on 16 Sep, 11 Aug on 15 Sep etc. I usually do dummy bookings regularly for a few weeks before the date I need to see that new flights are released each day as you would expect them to. When I was booking SYD-AMS on CX in J through QFF a few months ago for late May 2019 we had planned to leave SYD on a Thursday, a few days before a cruise we have booked. However since I saw, over a few months of checking, that at that stage CX were only releasing J SYD-HKG-AMS flights for Mon,Tue and Wed departures through QFF we booked the Wed flight. If we had not noticed that and had waited for the date that the Thu flight would be released we would have missed out.

 

[Pug1]

We used to fly JAL regularly BNE-NRT-JFK when our son lived in NYC.The connection was 1.05.Never missed a connection in nearly 20 trips.Once the BNE flight was late.We were met as we got off and taken to the front of transit security and straight to the JFK plane.
If you did miss they would put you up at NRT for the night if in J-no F on the BNE flight then.

Thank you drron, very reassuring

 

[Pug1]

I agree with MEL-Traveller about flying a day early. When flying to join a cruise I would definitely aim to be in Vancouver at least a day early in case of any delays as you never know what could happen. Look at QF9 a few days ago that had to return to PER after being in the air for a couple of hours because of an aggressive passenger. I haven't heard what time it then departed the next day but if anyone on that flight had needed to have arrived at LHR on time for something important that day they would have missed it.

A few years ago we were flying SYD-HNL on HA and staying there for a week before a cruise to sail from there back to SYD. Two hours into the flight we had to divert to BNE because a passenger had a medical problem. We arrived in HNL around 4 hours late and there were some passengers who were on a 7 night Hawaiian Islands cruise the same day and they should have just arrived in time but I know some of them were stressing about it.

Regarding booking award flights - you mentioned that the flight you need should be available on 17 Sep so I would check every day until then to see which flights are released that day and to confirm the time they become available so by the time the 17th comes you'll have an idea of the release patterns. Since 13 Aug 2019 should be released on 17 Sep, 12 Aug would be released on 16 Sep, 11 Aug on 15 Sep etc. I usually do dummy bookings regularly for a few weeks before the date I need to see that new flights are released each day as you would expect them to. When I was booking SYD-AMS on CX in J through QFF a few months ago for late May 2019 we had planned to leave SYD on a Thursday, a few days before a cruise we have booked. However since I saw, over a few months of checking, that at that stage CX were only releasing J SYD-HKG-AMS flights for Mon,Tue and Wed departures through QFF we booked the Wed flight. If we had not noticed that and had waited for the date that the Thu flight would be released we would have missed out.

good advice ken1. I have been checking and did so this morning for 8 Aug 19. Could get J to Narita but only Y on Narita to YVR.

 

[Pug1]

sydney time

thank you.

 

[Pug1]

Flying a day early will give you the security and peace of mind. The connecting time itself is fine, but that doesn't allow for inbound delays.

I'm now not worried about the connecting time but will book to arrive in Vancouver the day before, just in case.

 

[TomVexille]

I'm now not worried about the connecting time but will book to arrive in Vancouver the day before, just in case.

Good idea