Why is there only ever two J seats out of Australia?

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Mattyana2003

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Feb 24, 2013
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Nearly every time I try and book J seats for my family of four there is only usually two J seats on the first leg out of Australia to HKG, SIN, DXB, etc, particularly leaving Brisbane.
If I book two seats I was wondering if two more will appear? I haven't tried it because I don't want to waste two cancellation fees of 5000 points each. Does anyone have any experience with this? Thanks
 
Its a lottery and few seats are available these days on QF, unless you book long way out, if its 2 adults and 2 kids over 15 book two J and and 2 Y or Y+.
 
It is a lottery. Out of BNE I guess you are moving to all A330 ops, which means you have a max of 36J seats (soon to be reduced). I don't think there is a defined answer as to whether or not more seats are released closer to the flights.
 
Depending on your status you can get more released quite easily with a call to QF, just be flexible in your dates, give them a window to travel in and it won't be an issue.

As per the good advice above, look well in advance. And if it's peak travel dates do it at the full availability window.
 
1 adult and 1 child travel one day, the others the next.

Living that here except a week between departures and on ly 1 Jr. Booked each leg PER-HKG-JFK and EWR-HKG-PER (Cathay through QFF) booked the day they became available.
 
Wouldn't one option be to buy the seats?

Or buy and then play the international upgrade lottery?
 
I was looking 350 days out and still no luck. My status is bronze so a phone call to qantas won't do any good I wouldn't think.
 
It's because Qantas are tight coughs with their yield load management, even with their own staff. Doesn't help when they keep reducing International flights.
 
QF are very keen for you to earn points by flying or any other means. They are less keen for you to redeem them for anything where you can get good value. Toasters? Points plus Pay? By all means. Seats? Not so great.
 
When a flight is released for sale, QF's Yield Management determines how many award seats will be made available. For J on a whole range of flights, the standard number seems to be two.

As others have noted, if you are WP or above, you can ask QF to release extra seats, and if Yield agrees, then it happens. (In my experience, for seats in J, the answer tends to be "yes" if there are I class seats available for sale).

Closer to the flight date, if there's lots of seats still unsold, an extra seat or two is sometimes released.

On a QF A330, there are 36 J seats, so allocating four seats for award redemption is over 10% of the total capacity. I would say it would be unlikely Yield would be happy with that.
 
On a QF A330, there are 36 J seats, so allocating four seats for award redemption is over 10% of the total capacity. I would say it would be unlikely Yield would be happy with that.

Last year I found 3 J seats each way on QF129/QF130 for an entire two week period. At the time, it was a A333 with only 30 J seats. That's 10% of the total J capacity...
 
Don't know the answer to your question, but you could always use points for the 2 available J seats then pay for the other two? Or buy 2 Y tickets and try to upgrade.
 
You need to be creative with itinerary be prepared to travel/depart from SYD or MEL and have the flexibility to book close to departure date.

Using the above strategy I've been securing 4 sometimes 5 award tickets in J or above on QF/BA/CX every year for the past 10 years......
 
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Wouldn't one option be to buy the seats?

Or buy and then play the international upgrade lottery?

That doesn't work well for SA and Perth people who have to fly Emirates and you can't upgrade those.

I've checked international flights for the last 2 years and haven't managed much success in redeeming for J seats. Even Y are hard to get even as soon as they open up.
 
QF are very keen for you to earn points by flying or any other means. They are less keen for you to redeem them for anything where you can get good value. Toasters? Points plus Pay? By all means. Seats? Not so great.

Shhh, don't let out their secret or Lesley Grant will come after you...
 
That doesn't work well for SA and Perth people who have to fly Emirates and you can't upgrade those.

I've checked international flights for the last 2 years and haven't managed much success in redeeming for J seats. Even Y are hard to get even as soon as they open up.

Adelaide's not too bad, both with EK J and F capacity and CX in J.... I just booked HKG/ADL return in J with CX and at the time QF were showing 6 seats each way in J available as a classic award
 
Adelaide's not too bad, both with EK J and F capacity and CX in J.... I just booked HKG/ADL return in J with CX and at the time QF were showing 6 seats each way in J available as a classic award

Yep. But HK isn't where we need to go.
 
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