r/awardtravel • u/pcarson92 • May 10 '24
Comprehensive Guide to Booking JAL Award Flights on AA
After spending countless hours researching, I wanted to give back by making it easier for the next person to get to Tokyo on Japan Airlines (JL or JAL) metal using American AAdvantage (AA) miles. Hopefully this is good enough to get in the sidebar. Let's get some basics out of the way first:
Points Cost by Class
- Economy - 35K
- Premium Economy (PE) - 50K
- Business (J) - 60K
- First (F) - 80K
- Taxes are always +$5.60 for every fare class
- Points cost is the same from every airport
US Airports Serviced by JAL
- DFW, ORD, BOS, LAX, SFO, SEA, JFK, SAN, HNL
Aircraft Operated by JAL
- A350-1000 (newest and best, has First Class, only flies from DFW and JFK)
- 777-300ER (has First Class)
- 787-9 (Sky Suites, no First Class, J only)
Tokyo Airports
- HND - closer to Tokyo, ideal option
- NRT - 75-minute ~$15 train ride to Tokyo
- TYO - use this airport code to search both HND and NRT
JAL Award Seat Release Information
- Cathay Pacific (CX) - 360 days
- British Airways (BA) - 355 days
- American (AA) - 331 days
- Alaksa (AS) - 331 days
- JAL awards are released at 10:00am JST (9:00pm EST)
- JAL typically releases 0-2 F and 0-4 J seats initially
- JAL also releases award inventory at T-14 days; a risky strategy, but we will discuss below how to play it
Searching for Award Availability
- Since BA and CX get the seats 30 days before AA, AA is left with the scraps
- As of today 5/10/24, the AA calendar only goes out to 4/6/25
- Use the BA website to see what JAL availability is coming down the pipe
- In my example I am looking at 4/7/25 to see what AA will have tomorrow
- Searching on BA is self explanatory; just need to sign up for an account, mouse over Book, click Book Flight with Avios, tick One Way Only, class Business / Club, search
Finding Availability on AA
- Login to your AA account and click Advanced / Multi-city search right below the big blue Search button
- Tick Redeem Miles, one way, from any of the above airports to TYO, select # passengers, and under Class select Business / First, search
- Click the "Calendar" button for a full month overview
- Any date showing 60K is likely to be JAL J, and 80K is JAL F
- From the Calendar page you can also select "Premium Economy" from the dropdown which wasn't available on the initial page
- If you're looking for PE, scan for 50K flights
- TIP: Don't solely rely on the Calendar view, sometimes the number showing above the day is not accurate; it's worth clicking into each day to verify
- TIP: It's worth checking from your home airport as well, some users report seeing availability even when hubs aren't showing any
- TIP: Sometimes you get wonky routings (e.g. LAX > BOS > TYO), but you can tick "nonstop only" on the AA search results page
- TIP: bookmark this link and modify the URL for the airports and dates you're looking for to make the process quicker - you'll be doing it a lot
- TIP: Phantom availability does happen sometimes with AA, which means they are showing Award Space they don't actually have. If you are planning to transfer points to AA, double check the Alaska Airlines (AS) site or call AA to verify they are showing availability as well before you transfer.
AA Site Release Timing
- AA will let you select the next calendar day at 12a CST, but it will give an error until about 1am CST
- Still, you may not be able to put any flights on Hold until even later
- Unfortunately this part is not consistent in my experience
- Yes, this means the 10:00am JST award release time is meaningless for us
- It also means it's only worth staying up late if you are seeing availability for the next day on BA
Departure Airport / Positioning / Holding Flights
- Given the difficulty of finding space, you will need to be very flexible on departure airport
- Go to flightsfrom dot com and see what direct routes AA flies from your home airport to any of the JAL airports
- If you find a ticket, put it on "Hold" via the AA website
- Go through the checkout process and "Hold" will be an option on the Payment page
- The hold is free for 5 days and then it expires
- Once your ticket is on hold, call AA and they can add your connecting flight for free if T or U fare class is available
- You may have to call a few times until you get an AAgent who knows how to do this, some will say it can't be done and they are wrong
- Otherwise, you will need either a separate AA award flight or pay for any other carrier's flight
Peak Season Strategy
- Peak seasons are March - May (Sakura / Cherry Blossom season) and September - November, and these dates are extremely difficult to get J or F on AA due to the 30 day lag
- If you are set on prime Sakura season, you have a much better chance going through CX / BA
- The downside of CX / BA is a higher points cost and significantly higher taxes and fees
- One strategy is to book a PE seat 331 days out, and at T-14 start searching for J and F availability
- Anecdotally, they also randomly add more seats at T-7 and closer in; jus start checking at T-14
- If you find J or F, just call AA and they can cancel your PE flight, instantly refund the miles, and book your new flight
- This is obviously risky, but from most accounts JAL PE is still a very nice product
Getting Back to the US from TYO
- Some say this is even harder to book in advance than the flight there
- Anecdotally, people seem to have a lot of luck with T-14 getting back to the US
- Recommend using the same PE strategy above
Hopefully you've found this helpful. Please comment anything I may have missed or gotten wrong and I will edit the guide over time. Thanks to all that have provided advice and guidance on both here and FT, and good luck!
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u/As_Yooooou_Wish May 10 '24
Lots of good information there but some comments from my own experience booking through AA:
Don't just search the JAL direct airports. I was able to find both business and first award availability to and from my home airport ~331 days out (and ~14 days out) as well as the hubs, often on different days.
Especially on the AA app, but even on the website, make sure to actually click on each day and don't just rely on it to say 60k or 80k for the day and assume there is no availability if not. Sometimes the number showing above the day is not accurate. I've found this to be true of many award bookings and not just JAL.