Oh that sucks, definitely a deal breaker for me. Will just use Avios then to book something.

idk 125$ for a 4 hour + J on JL seems like a good deal to me

I would normally agree but it's more so the principle of it. I just booked the J award a few days ago and then to have to pay a needless $125 sucks.

Then you should start with MNL in the first place. It is free to upgrade from Y to J on one segment if J is not available when booking a J award and is available after.

Nah I haven't even decided if the flight to Tokyo will be from MNL or not. It may be from HKG or some other city. I haven't firmed up my plans in between yet but needed the J flight home from NRT so couldn't wait on that.

is this written in the rules? I didn’t know that, I’m an expiring MVP gold have Y on one segment in Feb and I know that it usually frees up later on. Would love to upgrade in the future

many have done that in the above posts.

Yes, as long as you paid for J on that direction of travel, you can change cabins to the one you paid for without a change fee. No routing/other flight changes though.

great. Being a good son I’m letting the mother fly F on our trip back from Japan and I booked myself in Y with a J connection from SIN. Hopefully something turns up

Called in to have my ORD>NRT re ticketed as it’s now HND for Sep 2020. Was previously showing on hold with JAL on their site. Now shows ticketed thankfully that was easy and simple

Just returned from a 12 day trip to Japan. Flew first class on JL both ways and it was just a spectacular experience (first time flying 1st international). The hard product was nice, but the food and service were spectacular. They really make you feel special from the moment you enter the plane. I cant think of much better use of miles redemption.

Is JL award search down? I keep getting error code 1230.

On Alaska site? Working for me

Same here. Just redeemed 2 seats in F LAX-HND for November.

When changing a JAL award ticket to another day on-line am I better off taking the option to "Make changes to this trip" or "Use the value of this trip to purchase a new trip"?

It depends on what your existing trip is and what your new trip is.

If you have a multi-segment trip and you want to keep some of the segments but change some others then you definitely want the "Make changes" or you may lose the segments you want to keep.

If this is a totally new trip with no segments in common with the existing trip I might be inclined to just cancel the existing trip and book the new one on a new ticket so I could reset the 1 year ticket validity window. The disadvantage is that the partner booking fee ($25?) on the existing reservation will not be refunded if you cancel but the advantage is that you reset the 1 year ticket validity window when you purchase the new ticket.

If it is a simple date change and the mileage cost is the same and you are sure you will be able to use the ticket within the existing validity window then it might make sense to use the "Use value" option. I suspect this would issue a new ticket too so maybe this is better than cancel and rebook except in the case that the new ticket costs less than the old ticket, then I do not know whether you would have fees to get the excess miles/fees refunded or whether they issued a credit that expires within the old ticket validity window. Someone else here probably knows and can chime in.

Great post, didn't know that about the partner booking fee.

Another point with a new ticket is you have 24 hours to make one free change or cancel, if MVP or below.

It makes sense to make the swap instead of change. I have made changes on other JAL awards that were confirmed, but took a day or two for JAL to reissue their side of the ticket, which wasn't a problem but caused unneeded angst. My concern is if there is a risk on the exchange of having original ticket cxled even if there is some failure to complete the new booking.

If you have one business and one first booking can the 1st class bring the biz class into the JAL lounges?

Yes, First Class passengers can invite one guest into the First lounge with them.

https://www.jal.co.jp/en/inter/servi...ber/class.html

Watching some dates for PDX - Tokyo awards. It looks like Saturday night Alaska did a mass schedule /flight # change that wiped out all the AS connecting flights to gateway cities for JAL awards from July on. AS says that JAL needs to make the new routings with AS connections available and they can't book them even if the AS flights are available to be booked separately. Anyone know how long it usually takes for JAL to catch up and make those routes available again?

It’s in JAL’s best interest to do it ASAP for customers wanting to pay cash rates on those routes, but I’d reserve the long haul flight when available and worry about the connecting flights later

The AS connections are available to revenue customers on JAL web site.

Your AS CS rep is unsurprisingly clueless and wrong. The AS schedule update wiped out saver availability and low fare buckets (which are related); partner awards must pair with AS saver availability to the JL gateway. You’re going to have to wait for AS to add availability in those buckets. JL has nothing to do with that.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/alas...er-5-21-a.html

Above post beat me to the new info I was posting here

Looks like it's fixed.

Before I could see tons of F/J awards TYO-SFO/LAX within two weeks of departure, if there are unsold seats. Recently I almost couldn't find any F/J for the first two weeks of 2020...EF shows quite a few seats...A bit weird...

I've been looking at a lot of fall dates and noticed the same thing

I've been looking for F between TYO and JFK all the way to Nov 2020 but only found 1 or 2 days with availability. Is this normal?

Yes, I would say this is normal. The small number of F award seats that JL releases are snapped up very quickly. Your best bet is towards the end of schedule for AS (330 days) or close in (there is availability on a few days during the first couple weeks of January).

I'm generally allergic to flying economy on long haul flights, but has anyone tried the new JL economy product with 19 inch wide seats (8 across 2-4-2) and 34 inch pitch? I think they have them on the 767s, which they use for SEA-NRT if I'm not mistaken.

This sounds like it has the dimensions (though not the recline or comfort) of a PE product. It might even cure my allergy 😁 Using miles for an economy redemption seems blasphemous, but... maybe?

Still blasphemous. The miles game will continue to deteriorate before our eyes over the coming years so enjoy J/F while you can.

The Sky Wider and Sky Wider II seats in JL Y are without a doubt the most spacious and comfortable Y seats around. They are installed on the long haul configured 767, 787-8, all 787-9, the refurbished 777-200ER, and the 77W.

Please continue the discussion in the current thread:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/alas...l#post31890035