JAL Mileage Bank - Question about JAL award availability using AA miles

I have an award booking on JAL in a couple of weeks for NRT-BKK round trip, during the peak of the Japanese summer holiday season.

Luckily, I was able to book a business class return, but unfortunately the outbound segment is in economy. I have been calling every day to check for award availability in J or F.

I just have a few questions:

Is there a way to check JAL award availability online in english? The Japanese english website does not appear to have such a feature.

Do all Oneworld partner airline award programs have access to the same award availability that JAL Mileage Bank members have?

What is the best way to monitor award availability? For now my plan is just to keep calling daily. Is there anything else I can do?


Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Mike

Go to the main page of the American region, http://www.ar.jal.com/en/, log in to your account and then click on the "International Award Ticket Reservation" button and and the next screen will say "Award Ticket Reservation Seat Availability". Input your info and there you go. :) I had a quick look at availability and C has seats from Aug 9th to the end of the month. Same thing for F except for the 11th and 12th.

Go to the main page of the American region, http://www.ar.jal.com/en/, log in to your account and then click on the "International Award Ticket Reservation" button and and the next screen will say "Award Ticket Reservation Seat Availability". Input your info and there you go. :) I had a quick look at availability and C has seats from Aug 9th to the end of the month. Same thing for F except for the 11th and 12th.

Agreed - I would also note that yes, OneWorld partners appear to have the same access to inventory. In my case, using British Air miles, I was able to simply re-ticket and have BA deduct the additional miles they needed, once F opened up.

Go to the main page of the American region, http://www.ar.jal.com/en/, log in to your account and then click on the "International Award Ticket Reservation" button and and the next screen will say "Award Ticket Reservation Seat Availability". Input your info and there you go. :) I had a quick look at availability and C has seats from Aug 9th to the end of the month. Same thing for F except for the 11th and 12th.

Thanks very much for the advice. I will create a JMB account to be able to search for availability, and then call AA to request the upgrade when inventory opens up.

I am actually traveling on the 12th, which is one of the peak travel days during the Japanese summer holiday period. I wish I could simply extend my stay and fly out a couple of days earlier, but unfortunately I can`t.

Did you say C has availability on the 12th? I am trying to get C or F on the morning flight, JL 717.

I just created an account, but because my address is in Japan, it will not let me log in on www.ar.jal.com. The Japanese english version website at www.jal.co.jp/en of course does not have an award availability search function- very irritating.

I am actually traveling on the 12th, which is one of the peak travel days during the Japanese summer holiday period. I wish I could simply extend my stay and fly out a couple of days earlier, but unfortunately I can`t.

Did you say C has availability on the 12th? I am trying to get C or F on the morning flight, JL 717.

717 is showing up as having to waitlist in both C and F on the 12th. The evening flight, 707, is wide open showing 16+ seats in C but it's the old style seats, not the Shell Flat seats. 707 has no F.

717 is showing 5-15 available seats on both Aug 11th and 13th in C. There is 1 F seat on 13th.

Good luck!

Please Note: the JAL online award sytems is not Live, its updated and downloaded every 24 hours, usually around 1.00am Japan Time. Therefore not 100% reliable.

Can someone tell me how the waiting list works for JAL flights. I've been using the search function on the JAL mileage bank and sometimes I see the circle symbol which means seat available and sometimes it is the waiting list.

I'm assuming that the waiting list is only something that can be used with JAL miles.

Also, my quick search with JAL MB has not shown any availability for 2 F seats. In other words, I can see some dates with a F seat but no dates with 2. I've been looking for North America (all cities) to NRT flights across several months.

Thanks in advance.

JAL have become quite shrewd since their early days in OneWorld.

They now show virtually no First availability, but allow JMB Members to waitlist..this is usually confirmed to their own overnight.

Meanwhile OW Members usually have to wait until 7 days out until JAL open Inventory.

The only way IMHO you are going to get 2 seats in First is within 7 days on a 747.

OW Members usually have to wait until 7 days out until JAL open Inventory.

The only way IMHO you are going to get 2 seats in First is within 7 days on a 747.

Interesting...I did a search (ORD-NRT) and was able to find 1 F seat availability from about 9 to 20 days out for almost every day. And 2 F seat availability for many of those days. BUT even the 1 seat availability trickled off considerably farther out and there were no 2 F seats.

So...the strategy would seem to be to first book two tickets on different dates and then as departure gets see if you can find a flight with 2 seats as they become available.

Interesting...I did a search (ORD-NRT) and was able to find 1 F seat availability from about 9 to 20 days out for almost every day. And 2 F seat availability for many of those days. BUT even the 1 seat availability trickled off considerably farther out and there were no 2 F seats.

So...the strategy would seem to be to first book two tickets on different dates and then as departure gets see if you can find a flight with 2 seats as they become available.

This will get worse after Oct 25 when they switch to JAL Suite which has only 8 F seats on each flight.

JAL have become quite shrewd since their early days in OneWorld.

They now show virtually no First availability, but allow JMB Members to waitlist..this is usually confirmed to their own overnight.

Meanwhile OW Members usually have to wait until 7 days out until JAL open Inventory.

The only way IMHO you are going to get 2 seats in First is within 7 days on a 747.

Good that you used the expression "IMHO" since I was able see two F seats (when I last looked about 5 days ago) on at least three days between 9/2 and 9/9 .. can we say two to three weeks out? :).... JAL suites SFO/NRT.

mike