While Japan Airlines operates flights between Tokyo and Sydney year-round, typically the route is operated by a Boeing 787, featuring economy, premium economy, and business class. This will be changing as of September. As noted by Executive Traveler, as of September 1, 2020, Japan Airlines will begin flying a Boeing 777-300ER daily between Tokyo Haneda…
Continue reading: Japan Airlines Brings First Class To Sydney (With Awards!)
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I believe this is a return of First class back to SYD which they stopped 2-3 years ago - at that time it was to/from NRT.
Cheers!
At least some of the space is phantom. I just tried booking some of business class seats tokyo to melbourne/sydney.
Once I selected the flights, and tried to continue i got the familar message of "flights no longer available".
Any suggestions?
Didn’t even realize they cut this. Took the NRT-SYD in F in 2016 and it was surprisingly empty
yes, thanks!! Avios actually worked. Twice as expensive as using AA miles. I'll use the next 24 hours to see if I can piece together the rest of my trip before deciding whether to keep or cancel the reservation.
I'm guessing all JAL ex US awards will dry up. Anyone using One World from US to Asia via HKG is rebooking via Japan, per the AA phone agents when asked about the very long hold time.
@Ben - what is the trick to being able to use the "old" AA award search tool (which you seem to have done here)? I always end up with the new one, which is nearly useless.
Ok - my final update on this.
I called into the American service centre. I feed the agent the flight numbers and initially, the agent had the same trouble booking the flight as I did. Then she called the internal help desk and the help desk was able to create the reservation. The agent also waived the phone booking fee given that it could not be booked online.
So now I have a AA reservation on hold until Feb 5, and a BA reservation ticketed. The BA is the preferred direct flights. I wonder if I cancel the BA when/if the seats will go back into the pool and if I could move my AA reservation over to them.
JAL also upgraded their second HND-LHR flight from 787 to 777 (JL41/42), adding First Class to this flight and more business class seats, which is great news given that I really like the timings of this flight. Plenty of award availability on these as well, although AA doesn’t show First as even existing on some of the days (even though they list 777)
Nice if you live in Japan, but having to book as two awards from the USA is not very attractive.
First class SYD-TYO-CDG going for $Aud 10,200 ( bit over $6000 USD) return right to May 2021 which although expensive is a fantastic bargain given you also can get 350% minimum with Alaska miles = approx. 70,000 miles. That’s enough for an additional Oceania to Hong Kong business class return. Too much money for me but a really good deal. Would be an excellent way to nest first class into multiple trips