Qantas Awards Flights on JAL. One leg no longer for sale but not cancelled. Seeking advice please

[yaziyo]

Hello.

After lurking and reading many threads about people who have faced similar issues, I am seeking some sage advice from the learned folks on this forum.

Some months ago we booked Qantas Awards Flights on JAL Business Class for SYD-HND-LHR all the way for March 2023. Since then, a war has gone and broken out in Europe and JAL has stopped flying over Russian airspace, subsequently reducing their European route frequency.

The flights I have booked are 2 seats on
SYD-HND - JL52 - 5 March 2023
HND-LHR - JL41 - 6 March 2023

My HND-LHR flight is not currently cancelled, but I can see that JAL no longer flies that route on Mondays (the day of my flight), and the flight is not appearing for sale any more on the JAL website except for "flex" fares for some reason. JAL has only formally announced their updated European timetables up until September 2022. On my Expert Flyer free trial the flight appears like this with a lot of zeros for someone who doesn't really understand the fare codes:


Later that same day, there is JL43 which still runs daily HND-LHR but doesn't have any Business Awards seats available.

So my dilema is do I:

1. Try to book an alternate route from now (I can see that there's HND-CDG available on that day with availability, which I could multi-city on the Qantas website with a BA flight to LHR for a longer layover. This would cost 20k more points each and a few more bucks in fees and charges. Other HND-LHR flights (including JL41s) are available on other days, but without any SYD-HND availability moving the entire itinerary doesn't seem to be an option. I'm also avoiding options which would require a NRT/HND airport change as Japan's borders are currently closed, with no word on when they might open.)
2. Pretend I haven't noticed and hope the flight comes back (after all, it's still a long time away and maybe the war will end and maybe flights to Japan will ramp up if Japan ever opens its borders)
3. Wait and try to get it fixed with Qantas when/if it does cancelled. From my reading, I can see some people have been completely stonewalled in getting awards flights fixed by Qantas when they're cancelled by a partner, but some folks have had success.

I only am a Qantas Bronze and my wife Silver, and from my reading this suggests that if we try to call Qantas for either option 1 or 3 the odds of getting someone who can actually help seems slim. I'd also be worried on calling them before its necessary, in case they somehow mess up the rest of my itinerary, including the SYD-HND leg for which there are no real alternatives.

My ideal option (other than the flight magically getting back to normal) would be getting JAL to instead put us onto the Mar 6 JL43 to LHR, but I know that there would be no chance of this until the flight is actually cancelled.


What would you do?

 

[Quickstatus]

Mar 2023 is a long time away,

Try and book an backup routing with points (if you have excess points to support that) - you can offload them if the JL flights indeed go ahead.

Then contact QF to try and change booking to another day - this will require QF to request JL to release an award seat that you can rebook into (assuming they agree that the original flight is no longer operating). It will also require a call centre with the capability to do that. But beware!! Changing award flights is risky because of the risk of losing the original award flight before the replacement award flight can be properly booked. If you have excess points suggest booking the replacement flight before cancelling the original.

If unable (and you may need to HUACA several times), then wait for the original flight to declare itself one way or another. If cancelled the airline will contact you with alternatives.

 

[Nitro6333]

The CX flights that we recently changed had been zeroed out for approx. 4 weeks or so before we received the notification they had been cancelled. I attempted to change the flights when I found they had been zeroed but QF advised the flights hadn’t been cancelled and were still confirmed so we weren’t able to request any changes till they actually cancelled the flights. The alternative they offered us wasn’t acceptable as it had an entire sector missing so we had to request a different date of travel which was accepted after a short waitlist period. When/if they cancel they should offer you an alternative I would wait until this happens seeing as your flights are a way off and hopefully the alternative is acceptable.

In the meantime I would be researching what would be a good connection option if the flights are cancelled and you need to request a change

 

[yaziyo]

Thanks both. I'm currently leaning towards waiting and seeing. I've read too many stories on here about folks losing their bookings due to mistakes by the folks in the call centre to be particularly excited by the trying to update it early with their help.

 

[ronlon]

While I agree March 2023 is a long way out, myself and others also thought travelling in 2022 was a long way out when we booked flights via Japan in 2021. It all fell to pieces due to Japan not opening up . The Japanese xenophobic attitude to foreigners in the current covid environment is still very much alive. Qantas have actually been cancelling JAL award bookings BEFORE Jal cancel the flights. It says a lot about about confidence with Japan and Qantas inside knowledge.

If you have the points I would book a back up route to LHR avoiding Japan. If you book before the end of September you have until the end of the year to cancel/change without points penalty.

 

[yaziyo]

While I agree March 2023 is a long way out, myself and others also thought travelling in 2022 was a long way out when we booked flights via Japan in 2021. It all fell to pieces due to Japan not opening up . The Japanese xenophobic attitude to foreigners in the current covid environment is still very much alive. Qantas have actually been cancelling JAL award bookings BEFORE Jal cancel the flights. It says a lot about about confidence with Japan and Qantas inside knowledge.

If you have the points I would book a back up route to LHR avoiding Japan. If you book before the end of September you have untilthe end of the year to cancel/change without points penalty.

I'm actually less concerned about Japan and I've assumed that the Japanese border will remain shut even by the time of my flights. Transitting from within HND is currently allowed (although an evening in Tokyo would be awesome if they do open!)

The free cancellation call is a good one though, and although now it's a bit late to be able to find many alternates I'll see if I can find anything decent. I was able to find an option with Qantas to Bangalore and then BA to LHR but I'll have to see what else is left.