Originally Posted by davidchui

I've noticed something similar between TPE/TSA and NRT/HND, there's rarely any award availability. I think it's because these are important and high-yield business routes (as you noted, the fare is $650 for a 2-hour flight) so they don't want to make seats available for awards that could be sold for high cash fares. Then, depending on time of year, there's also tons of tourist traffic as well. Wouldn't bet on having award availability from any of the main network carriers on the route, you'll have better luck with either one of the low cost carriers or Ethiopian's fifth freedom flight on ICN-NRT. Another alternative is to fly into either NGO or KIX (though not on JAL) if you're doing a trip across Japan, particularly since it's easy to get between cities on the Shinkansen. Those cities' cash fares tend to be a bit lower than to TYO since there's so much more business traffic between Seoul and Tokyo than to the other cities