Originally Posted by
Rem Coolhouse
Are JAL seats also released for Avios bookings at midnight GMT?.
No
Originally Posted by
Rem Coolhouse
Is it likely that there'll be no Avios seats left on the JAL bookings for late March/early April?.
Yes
Originally Posted by
Rem Coolhouse
Is there an (easy) way of determining in advance if any JAL seats will be released?.
No
Originally Posted by
Rem Coolhouse
Am I better off just booking BA (or QR or AY) instead?.
Possibly
JAL had a lot of people scraping their reward seats by getting them when first released and then selling them on.
So now they tend to only release F seats relatively close to the time of travel. J is sometimes avalable, but it's not on the same ordered cycle as BA availability. No easy way to predict what will come up when.
As mentioned above it's worth trying to get reward availability from other European cities to Japan especially if your starting point in the UK is not London.
You will need a 'positioning flight' to get there, but that is often a good excuse to see another city. And the availability of Avios rewards is usually much better than starting in the UK. This applies to JAL as much as to Qatar.