deant

Looking to use AA miles for a JL award in either C or F. To check JL inventory, I am logging into the JL site and then chosing International seat availability award check calendar. Then go to selecting departure city and date. That pulls up a "general" calendar that shows availability. It shows significant award availability (noted by a "0"). Others show either no availability or waitlist. However, once I click on a specific date it takes me to specific flight screen that shows only waitlist available (diamond notation).

Am I doing something wrong or is JL really not releasing any C or F flights 330 days out for flights between the US and Tokyo? If they are not releasing at 330 days out, does anyone have a good idea as to how far out they do release C or F seats?

roberto99

Years ago, airlines released award inventory 330 days out.

But they realized that only inventory that won't be sold for cash should be sold for points.

So now most award inventory seems to released in the 14 days before departure... after most revenue sales have been completed and an accurate forecast is likely.

Translation: Airlines give nothing away for points that may generate cash.

Not good for those that need to plan ahead.

Use www.ba.com to search for award inventory for JL and CX

TravelLawyer

You need to use BA to search awards on JL. Also, I've seen anywhere from 1 to 4 seats being released in J and 0 to 2 seats being released in F 330 days out. But once they get booked, they are not releasing more until a few days before the flight.

Bttc

The seat check calendar is updated once per day, so if someone else has already booked the availability you're seeing, it won't show up until you have the website search for the specific day.

Goosh

Here is the definitive guide to booking JL award flights using partner miles such as AA and BA. And yes, you are doing something wrong, but only because you don't know all the details and intricacies of booking JL awards.

Flights load into inventory 330 days out at 10am Japan Standard Time or 6pm Pacific Daylight Time (to the second). Revenue inventory and award inventory load at the same time. I can only speak to the JL 61 (LAX-NRT), 62 (NRT-LAX) and JL 1 (SFO-HND), 2 (HND-SFO) since those are the only routes I look at, but I expect other routes to be similar. JL 61, 62 loads 2 F and 2 J seats while JL 1, 2 loads 2 F and at least 4 J seats. What's crazy is that the award seats are available to partner redemption online before they are available online to JMB members. What I mean by this is that while the award seats are available to partners online at 6pm PDT, they aren't available to JMB members online until the next day at around 10:30am PDT. I do not know for sure if you are able to book the seats as soon as they load using JL miles by calling JL, but you definitely can't do it online.

Like others above have said, The best way to check award inventory is the BA site. The info on BA is real time while others above have mentioned that the calendar view on the JL site is only updated once a day around 10:30am PDT (timing varies widely day by day...can be anywhere from 9am PDT to 12pm PDT). The real time inventory on the JL site is only available when looking at specific dates.

The fastest way to get awards that I know of is to use the BA site and book directly through BA using Avios since everything can be done online. The pro to that is that you'll probably beat anyone trying to use AA miles, the con is that you'll have to pay fuel surcharges. If you are using AA miles, you need to anticipate the awards loading into the system at 6pm PDT and time your call with AA to coincide with 6pm since you can't book JL awards online through AA. The pro is that there are no fuel surcharges, the con is that your wait time to talk to a CSR is variable.

All of the above is only for booking JL awards 330 days in advance. The award inventory is usually available for about 3 months, then it goes away. After that, award inventory is very sporadic especially for popular routes like LAX-NRT and vice versa. The only thing to do is check everyday. Inventory does tend to open up close to departure. They will usually release award seats for any remaining seats except for one. If inventory is showing F3 the day before departure, they will usually have 2 seats available for redemption. I have never seen them release the very last seat.

I hope that helps you out.

77W_12A

How many miles does it take using JMB to redeem a C class LAX-NRT on JL? I've noticed so many on the JL board trying to use AAdvantage miles to redeem on JL flights.

dvs7310

http://www.jal.co.jp/en/jalmile/use/...ter/miles.html

Looks like 80k booking before Oct 31st, and 100k after (round trip). It also mentions that one way is available at half the round trip rate as of April. This is surprisingly a pretty good deal, especially for F. It's too bad that Amex Japan dropped JL as a transfer partner for MR last year, I may have to pick up a JAL credit card now.

TravelLawyer

Wow, that's a really good deal. I guess most of us on the board originate from the US. So unless we do the bulk of the flying to/from Japan, it's hard to accumulate enough EQM's for status (even with bonus credit card points) on JAL alone. I know my husband flies a lot to Asia (but not exclusively to Japan) and also to Europe from the US.

77W_12A

I have to say, the redemption rates are VERY VERY GOOD, even after the devaluation. I can't say the same with the current FFP I bank my miles with. I like how they treat Korea and Greater China as the same regarding the redemption.

It's a pity. I love JL. They just don't have the frequency that I'm looking for.

dvs7310

The problem is, yes the redemption rates are quite good, it's not as easy to accrue quickly, earning rates for JL & OW flights are poor for anything less than full fare (even JL metal I fare is only 70%). Even the credit cards offered have very meager sign up bonuses, I think the best one I found was 9,000 miles though occasional promos may be a bit more, we just don't get those 50k sign up bonuses that happen in the US market. There's one card though that has 2x points for overseas spending which for my own pattern would yield quite a few miles. I think for the average person AA and BA probably offer better earning rates and at that point it may be a wash for redemption at the marginally higher levels of those programs, for people flying non-discount Y or C then I can see where JL MB would be nice.

ENFO

This was incredibly helpful, even if I'm not the OP. Thanks.

j.pak.ksglobal

Same here. I was just looking into this as well! Cheers!

Goosh

Welcome. Glad it helped.

nakataboi

Wish this had been posted a month ago! I actually was checking ba.com for the availability all day long and found that at 6:01PDT is when it showed up for me. Very cool that it's confirmed though. Thanks for sharing your tips!

randomtask123

What I'm finding in a intl + domestic booking (e.g., LAX-NRT-CTS) is that even if there's availability on the intl leg (LAX-NRT), the most convenient domestic leg (same day, within hours from 1st leg landing) isn't available.

This is not a problem if you want to spend some time in Tokyo, but not if you want to reach the final dest sooner...

How many spaces each flight does JAL usually release in Y for domestic flights (booked via OW/AA/BA)?