Originally Posted by
hardworking21
Hope this is the right thread - wanted to ask if anyone knew of when JAL Business award space is released to Alaska Airlines?
For context, I'm looking at a ORD - HND - SIN route, which is ~65K Alaska miles for the JAL business ticket. I see availability up until October 1, 2023, but am looking to book for say October 8/9/10, 2023, all of which I only see the economy class option. In fact, October 2, 2023 onward, I only see the economy class redemption option for this route. Is this because award availability is already all booked up or that it hasn't been released yet post October 1, 2023?
As of this moment AS can book JAL flights through October 12, 2023 but this requires workarounds for AS end of schedule booking limitations. If you want a flight in the last week of the calendar you should definitely book it ASAP using one of the workarounds because AA now also has access to that inventory and it can disappear very quickly once inside the 330 day window.
For your trip, I recommend the calendar workaround. Staring at the AS homepage click on "All search options", select one-way, use miles, Award Calendar, your origin (ORD), your destination (SIN), date a day or two from the end of the selectable dates (like 10/10 or 10/11 today when end of calendar is 10/12), and search. When you get the calendar up choose the date you want and if there is availability it should show now (whereas it does not show when doing a standard date search). Everytime you want to change a parameter on the search you must navigate back to the AS home page and click through to the "All search options" and do a calendar search from there. If you do not do this you will be in bug limbo and the results will not show JAL business class availability for the last 6-7 days of the booking window.