Aug 4, 2015, 1:37 pm
Last edit by: Prospero
GUIDE to redeeming AA miles for Japan Air Lines awards:
For 2012-2015 posts, please see
ARCHIVE: AA Award on JL / JAL / Japan Airlines (master thd)
For further information, see:
HELP DESK: MileSAAver / SAAver award questions, assistance
oneworld and Other Airline (Partner) Awards info, rules 2014 on
- JL awards are now shown show and can be booked on aa.com
- AwardNexus (free to FlyerTalk members for basic searches) will also reveal, and (for a fee) alert, on JL award seats
- AA awards on JL must be MileSAAver (AAnytime awards are only available on AA marketed and AA operated flights)
- There are no onerous fuel or carrier-imposed surcharges using AAdvantage miles for awards using JL
- JL initially releases awards to AAvantage members 330 days out at 10:00 am JST time (18:00 PDT, 17:00 PST). Note, JL award inventory is released to members of other FFPs 360 day out and updates award and revenue seat award availability once daily ~09:30-12:00 Pacific time
- JL may release 0-2 F and 0-4 J award seats initially; until taken they remain available up to three months from release
- No further seats are likely to be released until shortly (~14 days) prior to scheduled departure - but the last F seat will be retained for sale, not released into award inventory
- No stopovers are allowed on AA awards. Connections may be as long as 23:59.
- Only JAL Mileage Bank members can waitlist awards
- All awards for domestic Japan will default to Economy (including international F or J award with domestic segments); these can often be upgraded at reasonable cost at the ticket counter in the Japan connecting airport
- If JL & QF are showing availability, but AA can't see it, try calling the Australia AA center as it may be a point-of-sale issue
For 2012-2015 posts, please see
ARCHIVE: AA Award on JL / JAL / Japan Airlines (master thd)
For further information, see:
HELP DESK: MileSAAver / SAAver award questions, assistance
oneworld and Other Airline (Partner) Awards info, rules 2014 on
AAdvantage Award on JL / JAL / Japan Airlines (2016-2023)
Apr 3, 2019, 2:47 pm
#976
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 250
Help with best use of AA miles for BOS=>Japan in biz
Looking to go round trip to NRT or HND from Boston sometime in July/August, possibly even September. I have about 350k AA miles and would like to get 2 biz tickets. I am open to the following possibilities:
- Using the miles to get book on JAL BOS-NRT
- Award ticket entirely on AA or another partner with one stop
- Buying BOS-NRT in coach and using the miles for a paid miles+dollars confirmed upgrade at the time of purchase (I think this is unlikely/not possible in this scenario)
- Buying some AA flight with a layover in coach and using the miles for miles+dollars confirmed upgrade at the time of purchase
- Any other way to get from Boston to Tokyo with no more than 1 stop that gets us in biz without paying retail for biz
Last edited by dpakman91; Apr 3, 2019 at 3:10 pm
Apr 3, 2019, 3:05 pm
#977
Join Date: Jun 2011
Programs: United Premier Platinum
Posts: 638
Upgrading an economy ticket on BOS-NRT with AA miles is not possible because the flight is operated by JL, so you would need to book award tickets to get biz on that route.
With that out of the way:
It’s hard to provide a comprehensive answer without knowing your priorities and how much you value saving miles vs. minimizing cash expenditure, inconvenience, etc. I’ll answer under the assumption that you’d rather spend miles than money all other things equal and recommend you to search for biz award seat availability on all JL and AA flights to Japan.
Searching for AA flights is self-explanatory. AS and BA’s award search engines show JL availability, so I recommend them for finding JAL seats. Try BOS, JFK, ORD, and DFW. There are also flights from LAX, SAN, YVR and now SEA, but these are less ideal because of the longer domestic leg from BOS and in some cases inferior biz product on board.
Once you’ve found a JL route with seats, go back to AA’s award engine and make sure SAAver awards are available to get you from BOS to the JL departure point. Do not let an AA agent put AAnytime awards into the itinerary because this will make the entire thing super expensive.
JL has decent availability in biz and first, but be prepared to plug and chug multiple cities and dates until you’ve found a combination that works for your plans.
FWIW, booking discount economy on AA and applying for a mileage upgrade is an option, but it has caveats:
- you will need to pay a $350 copay per segment per passenger
- it will not confirm you unless there is C inventory available at time of purchase. This inventory is far less common weeks out than JAL award inventory. Assuming it’s not available, your only option would be to waitlist and risk not having the upgrade confirm.
With that out of the way:
It’s hard to provide a comprehensive answer without knowing your priorities and how much you value saving miles vs. minimizing cash expenditure, inconvenience, etc. I’ll answer under the assumption that you’d rather spend miles than money all other things equal and recommend you to search for biz award seat availability on all JL and AA flights to Japan.
Searching for AA flights is self-explanatory. AS and BA’s award search engines show JL availability, so I recommend them for finding JAL seats. Try BOS, JFK, ORD, and DFW. There are also flights from LAX, SAN, YVR and now SEA, but these are less ideal because of the longer domestic leg from BOS and in some cases inferior biz product on board.
Once you’ve found a JL route with seats, go back to AA’s award engine and make sure SAAver awards are available to get you from BOS to the JL departure point. Do not let an AA agent put AAnytime awards into the itinerary because this will make the entire thing super expensive.
JL has decent availability in biz and first, but be prepared to plug and chug multiple cities and dates until you’ve found a combination that works for your plans.
FWIW, booking discount economy on AA and applying for a mileage upgrade is an option, but it has caveats:
- you will need to pay a $350 copay per segment per passenger
- it will not confirm you unless there is C inventory available at time of purchase. This inventory is far less common weeks out than JAL award inventory. Assuming it’s not available, your only option would be to waitlist and risk not having the upgrade confirm.
Apr 3, 2019, 3:12 pm
#978
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 250
Upgrading an economy ticket on BOS-NRT with AA miles is not possible because the flight is operated by JL, so you would need to book award tickets to get biz on that route.
With that out of the way:
It’s hard to provide a comprehensive answer without knowing your priorities and how much you value saving miles vs. minimizing cash expenditure, inconvenience, etc. I’ll answer under the assumption that you’d rather spend miles than money all other things equal and recommend you to search for biz award seat availability on all JL and AA flights to Japan.
Searching for AA flights is self-explanatory. AS and BA’s award search engines show JL availability, so I recommend them for finding JAL seats. Try BOS, JFK, ORD, and DFW. There are also flights from LAX, SAN, YVR and now SEA, but these are less ideal because of the longer domestic leg from BOS and in some cases inferior biz product on board.
Once you’ve found a JL route with seats, go back to AA’s award engine and make sure SAAver awards are available to get you from BOS to the JL departure point. Do not let an AA agent put AAnytime awards into the itinerary because this will make the entire thing super expensive.
JL has decent availability in biz and first, but be prepared to plug and chug multiple cities and dates until you’ve found a combination that works for your plans.
FWIW, booking discount economy on AA and applying for a mileage upgrade is an option, but it has caveats:
- you will need to pay a $350 copay per segment per passenger
- it will not confirm you unless there is C inventory available at time of purchase. This inventory is far less common weeks out than JAL award inventory. Assuming it’s not available, your only option would be to waitlist and risk not having the upgrade confirm.
With that out of the way:
It’s hard to provide a comprehensive answer without knowing your priorities and how much you value saving miles vs. minimizing cash expenditure, inconvenience, etc. I’ll answer under the assumption that you’d rather spend miles than money all other things equal and recommend you to search for biz award seat availability on all JL and AA flights to Japan.
Searching for AA flights is self-explanatory. AS and BA’s award search engines show JL availability, so I recommend them for finding JAL seats. Try BOS, JFK, ORD, and DFW. There are also flights from LAX, SAN, YVR and now SEA, but these are less ideal because of the longer domestic leg from BOS and in some cases inferior biz product on board.
Once you’ve found a JL route with seats, go back to AA’s award engine and make sure SAAver awards are available to get you from BOS to the JL departure point. Do not let an AA agent put AAnytime awards into the itinerary because this will make the entire thing super expensive.
JL has decent availability in biz and first, but be prepared to plug and chug multiple cities and dates until you’ve found a combination that works for your plans.
FWIW, booking discount economy on AA and applying for a mileage upgrade is an option, but it has caveats:
- you will need to pay a $350 copay per segment per passenger
- it will not confirm you unless there is C inventory available at time of purchase. This inventory is far less common weeks out than JAL award inventory. Assuming it’s not available, your only option would be to waitlist and risk not having the upgrade confirm.
Apr 3, 2019, 7:51 pm
#979
Join Date: Feb 2004
Posts: 250
Using the BA searches I'm finding quite a few dates of Premium Economy availability for BOS-NRT but literally zero on biz. Is it too early for jun/jul availability, or is it just that rare?
Apr 3, 2019, 9:28 pm
#980
Join Date: Jun 2011
Programs: United Premier Platinum
Posts: 638
I know JL releases nearly all of their unsold F seats as award space about 2 weeks prior to departure, but I don’t know to what extent they do this with J.
JFK tends to have more space available since there are two 777s that leave there for Tokyo daily.
Apr 3, 2019, 9:36 pm
#981
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: MEL CHC
Posts: 21,024
Looking to go round trip to NRT or HND from Boston sometime in July/August, possibly even September. I have about 350k AA miles and would like to get 2 biz tickets.
<snip>
<snip>
- Any other way to get from Boston to Tokyo with no more than 1 stop that gets us in biz without paying retail for biz
By "stop" we assume you mean transit as AA awards do not allow stopovers
Very general guide-->https://www.awardhacker.com/#f=BOS&t...=0&c=j&s=1&p=0
HELP DESK: MileSAAver / SAAver award questions, assistance
AA oneworld & Other Airline Partner Award information, rules (master thd)
JL---> AAdvantage Award using JL / JAL / Japan Airlines (master thd)
Apr 3, 2019, 9:54 pm
#982
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Live: IWI; Work: DCA/Everywhere; Play: LAS/SJU/MLE
Programs: AA EXP, DL PM, Hyatt Glob, Marriott Ambassador/LTP, Nat'l Exec Elite, LEYE Gold
Posts: 6,670
I went on alaskaair.com, put in ORD-TYO for July 30 (random date), and there's at least 2 business seats on each of the two flights that date. Sure, you might have to book BOS-ORD either early in the morning or in coach for now, but just book it to lock in the TPAC segments and deal with the domestic segments separately (set EF alerts, etc.).
Apr 3, 2019, 10:48 pm
#983
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: HND
Programs: AA EXP, UA 1K
Posts: 1,230
I think BOS-NRT direct is likely pretty hard to score with miles. It's alway $10k when I look to book it, which makes me think there's a lot of paid demand.
My suggestion (and not considering availability) would be:
1) Boston to LAX and then LAX into HND all on AA metal. Usually the LAX-HND R/T is a pretty easy upgrade.
2) Boston to JFK to HND (with JFK-HND operated by JAL)
Arriving into Haneda after a 13 hour flight (assuming your destination is central Tokyo) is exponentially more civilized than arriving into NRT and then making the 1-2 hour journey into the city. In fact, I would almost consider this instead of BOS-NRT direct (almost) given how much I prefer Haneda.
Following that, you could look at
My suggestion (and not considering availability) would be:
1) Boston to LAX and then LAX into HND all on AA metal. Usually the LAX-HND R/T is a pretty easy upgrade.
2) Boston to JFK to HND (with JFK-HND operated by JAL)
Arriving into Haneda after a 13 hour flight (assuming your destination is central Tokyo) is exponentially more civilized than arriving into NRT and then making the 1-2 hour journey into the city. In fact, I would almost consider this instead of BOS-NRT direct (almost) given how much I prefer Haneda.
Following that, you could look at
Apr 4, 2019, 6:20 pm
#985
Join Date: Jan 2013
Location: Hawai'i Nei
Programs: Au: UA, Marriott, Hilton; GE
Posts: 7,142
Happy;
Our TPAC tickets are issued by AA - when retrieved the reservation under Manage Booking, the Register Passport Info tab can open but the screen does NOT have any box to enter passport info. It has the AA FF number with the primary passenger (whose account is used to book the ticket) but Not even such info for the companion - it has only "registered" shown under the companion's name. That is ALL shown on the screen.
JL phone rep confirmed their system has our KTNs in it despite I cannot see it online nor have any ability to add - all I care is the KTNs in the system so our BPs would have TSA Pre printed. I dont care about OLCI is possible or not - I have no intention to do OLCI. There is no need to do OLCI because seats are already selected even for domestic coach award. When I called JL the phone rep told me as long as they are award tickets we can select seats online. Sure enough. Our BA issued domestic reservations allow seat selection even though they are issued under our BA FF numbers despite we are BA peons. So what is the need for OLCI if you can preselect seats?
The JL site display is the worst I have seen among all partners site because it does not even display the ticket number even in the form of 001xxxxxxx. Some partners sites would display the full ticket numbers, such as QR and CX. This is important when your ticket is reissued, you want to make sure the reissuance is done and the partners have received the new ticket.
JL site does not show any reference to eTicket at all.
Our TPAC tickets are issued by AA - when retrieved the reservation under Manage Booking, the Register Passport Info tab can open but the screen does NOT have any box to enter passport info. It has the AA FF number with the primary passenger (whose account is used to book the ticket) but Not even such info for the companion - it has only "registered" shown under the companion's name. That is ALL shown on the screen.
JL phone rep confirmed their system has our KTNs in it despite I cannot see it online nor have any ability to add - all I care is the KTNs in the system so our BPs would have TSA Pre printed. I dont care about OLCI is possible or not - I have no intention to do OLCI. There is no need to do OLCI because seats are already selected even for domestic coach award. When I called JL the phone rep told me as long as they are award tickets we can select seats online. Sure enough. Our BA issued domestic reservations allow seat selection even though they are issued under our BA FF numbers despite we are BA peons. So what is the need for OLCI if you can preselect seats?
The JL site display is the worst I have seen among all partners site because it does not even display the ticket number even in the form of 001xxxxxxx. Some partners sites would display the full ticket numbers, such as QR and CX. This is important when your ticket is reissued, you want to make sure the reissuance is done and the partners have received the new ticket.
JL site does not show any reference to eTicket at all.
Apr 4, 2019, 8:30 pm
#986
Join Date: Jan 2010
Programs: UA, AS
Posts: 2,393
I had an opportunity to follow up on this and had success. 1J became available HND-SFO with POS Japan. Nothing available from other POS's. I called the AA Japan call center number during Japan business hours using Skype. My call was routed to an agent in Malaysia (IIRC, might have been Manilla, definitely started with M) which disappointed me at first since I was looking to book an award with a POS of Japan. I gave the agent the flight I was looking for and she said unfortunately no seats were available. I pointed out that seats would only be available if the POS was Japan and asked if she had a way to set the POS to Japan. She confirmed she could set the POS to Japan, set the POS to JP, re-ran the search and she seemed a bit surprised that now 1J award was available. I had her book it (she asked me if I wanted to pay the fees in JPY or USD and I chose USD). It shows up when I retrieve it online but with a status of "On Request" which I believe is standard for AA since they do not ticket immediately. So, Success!
I had called Friday night to book it originally and the status showed as "On Request". Sunday Night (Monday Japan time) miles were deducted and I got an email saying it was ticketed but it was not ticketed - status still showed "On Request". Waited a couple of days and no change so I called in and was connected with an agent who identified himself as "with International Aadvantage". He had to contact his help disk because there was an error he had not seen before and did not know how to handle. It turns out there was some problem in the way the original agent had set up the monetary portion of the payment to be in USD. The system was rejecting because it wasn't paid in JPY or maybe because it was not paid with a Japanese credit card or something. The Help Desk stayed on the line with him until he confirmed my payment method again and then the help desk coded it to take the payment in USD. Status still showed "On Request" but it ticketed overnight and now the status is now "Ticketed" and everything is fine. In hindsight it may have been better for me to choose JPY at booking when the original agent gave me the choice to pay in JPY or USD. I am not sure if the original agent just did not know how to code it in the system properly or whether they could not or whether if I picked JPY it would have gone through automatically but the takeaway is it might be better to pay the monetary portion of the ticket cost in JPY but you still need to keep a close eye on it to make sure it tickets within a few days and call to check if it doesn't. When I pulled up the reservation on JAL's site before ticketing it showed the status as "Hold" with the hold valid until the departure date of the flight three months from now so even if things went way wrong with the ticketing the space was reserved and there was plenty of time to fix the ticketing glitches before departure.
Apr 4, 2019, 9:13 pm
#987
Join Date: Dec 2017
Posts: 26
You most likely need to do this in 3 steps if you want to use ORD.
1) change the MLI-DFW-NRT to MLI-ORD-NRT.
2) drop the MLI-ORD which is a free change but most agents dont know about it. I hope the drop segment rules are in the wiki of the Main Helpt Thread because there is an internal doc specifically related to the conditions of free change and is searchable in AA system should the agent not know how to do it.
Now you have only a ORD-NRT flight.
3) when ORD-NRT F opens up you call to Up fare it to F. A free change other than the additional miles.
If you feel super lucky you can gamble and try to all steps together when MLI-ORD does not have any availability on the date F opens up other than Anytime.... You would mostly fail.
Really for this kind of small airports, you would be far better off to make your own way (position) to the much larger airport nearby, where international flights are abundant. In this case, it is ORD which is far better than DFW for going to Asia on availability and in this case, F becomes available.
1) change the MLI-DFW-NRT to MLI-ORD-NRT.
2) drop the MLI-ORD which is a free change but most agents dont know about it. I hope the drop segment rules are in the wiki of the Main Helpt Thread because there is an internal doc specifically related to the conditions of free change and is searchable in AA system should the agent not know how to do it.
Now you have only a ORD-NRT flight.
3) when ORD-NRT F opens up you call to Up fare it to F. A free change other than the additional miles.
If you feel super lucky you can gamble and try to all steps together when MLI-ORD does not have any availability on the date F opens up other than Anytime.... You would mostly fail.
Really for this kind of small airports, you would be far better off to make your own way (position) to the much larger airport nearby, where international flights are abundant. In this case, it is ORD which is far better than DFW for going to Asia on availability and in this case, F becomes available.
The first couple agents would not budge and insisted on a change fee to drop the segment. The first agent actually suggested a similar approach, by taking the MLI-ORD leg the night before and securing the F availability that way, with the hope the flight I do want opens later. I suggested doing this and dropping the first leg afterwards but again they said it would incur a fee.
I was prepared to try that but in the end, I was pretty fortunate the 3rd agent I spoke to was able to do this all at once. He mentioned that because I was upgrading to F they were able to drop the segment and just give us ORD-NRT, at no cost other than the miles.
Apr 4, 2019, 9:26 pm
#988
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,762
You are indeed lucky because the Up Fare fee waived normally does not apply to the O/D change hence you got a suggestion from the agent who literally advised you to do the drop segment first. Then do the up fare later. The gamble paid off this time. Though I still think going to Asia, ORD is a better choice than DFW - both airports have similar drawbacks with ORD has the added Winter weather hassle. DFW has its fare share of Summer thunderstorm delays, often quite bad.
Apr 4, 2019, 9:41 pm
#989
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Florida
Posts: 29,762
There was a minor problem in ticketing but all is resolved and it is ticketed now.
I had called Friday night to book it originally and the status showed as "On Request". Sunday Night (Monday Japan time) miles were deducted and I got an email saying it was ticketed but it was not ticketed - status still showed "On Request". Waited a couple of days and no change so I called in and was connected with an agent who identified himself as "with International Aadvantage". He had to contact his help disk because there was an error he had not seen before and did not know how to handle. It turns out there was some problem in the way the original agent had set up the monetary portion of the payment to be in USD. The system was rejecting because it wasn't paid in JPY or maybe because it was not paid with a Japanese credit card or something. The Help Desk stayed on the line with him until he confirmed my payment method again and then the help desk coded it to take the payment in USD. Status still showed "On Request" but it ticketed overnight and now the status is now "Ticketed" and everything is fine. In hindsight it may have been better for me to choose JPY at booking when the original agent gave me the choice to pay in JPY or USD. I am not sure if the original agent just did not know how to code it in the system properly or whether they could not or whether if I picked JPY it would have gone through automatically but the takeaway is it might be better to pay the monetary portion of the ticket cost in JPY but you still need to keep a close eye on it to make sure it tickets within a few days and call to check if it doesn't. When I pulled up the reservation on JAL's site before ticketing it showed the status as "Hold" with the hold valid until the departure date of the flight three months from now so even if things went way wrong with the ticketing the space was reserved and there was plenty of time to fix the ticketing glitches before departure.
I had called Friday night to book it originally and the status showed as "On Request". Sunday Night (Monday Japan time) miles were deducted and I got an email saying it was ticketed but it was not ticketed - status still showed "On Request". Waited a couple of days and no change so I called in and was connected with an agent who identified himself as "with International Aadvantage". He had to contact his help disk because there was an error he had not seen before and did not know how to handle. It turns out there was some problem in the way the original agent had set up the monetary portion of the payment to be in USD. The system was rejecting because it wasn't paid in JPY or maybe because it was not paid with a Japanese credit card or something. The Help Desk stayed on the line with him until he confirmed my payment method again and then the help desk coded it to take the payment in USD. Status still showed "On Request" but it ticketed overnight and now the status is now "Ticketed" and everything is fine. In hindsight it may have been better for me to choose JPY at booking when the original agent gave me the choice to pay in JPY or USD. I am not sure if the original agent just did not know how to code it in the system properly or whether they could not or whether if I picked JPY it would have gone through automatically but the takeaway is it might be better to pay the monetary portion of the ticket cost in JPY but you still need to keep a close eye on it to make sure it tickets within a few days and call to check if it doesn't. When I pulled up the reservation on JAL's site before ticketing it showed the status as "Hold" with the hold valid until the departure date of the flight three months from now so even if things went way wrong with the ticketing the space was reserved and there was plenty of time to fix the ticketing glitches before departure.
When I read about your previous post I was wondering why would you pick USD payment instead of the currency that matched with the POS - I believe that discrepancy had caused a good many issues during the frantic time people tried to book EY thru the Australia office before the last devaluation. I assume it makes no difference which currency to use if your payment card does not have forex fee. Besides, we dont even know how the transaction is based, i.e. a US transaction or a transaction initiated from outside US, as the forex fee is based on where the transaction is occurred, and nothing to do with the currency itself.
Personally I also had encountered difficulty when using a canceled ticket value voucher in USD to ticket a CAD based one way ticket originated from Canada, in AA's Ft. Lauderdale ticketing office. The agent could not make the system to accept the voucher because the currency differs from the departure city. Luckily that day there was another agent visiting from Coral Gable (Miami) and she remembered there were special steps/codes needed to make it work. She said the Coral Gable office encountered this issue very often due to they had a lot of customers from South America - so the canceled ticket vouchers often in different currency than the default currency on subsequent bookings and the system always threw a fit when they tried to pay with the voucher.
Apr 5, 2019, 6:57 am
#990
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Tokyo
Programs: Marriott Plat, HH G,Hyatt E,*A Gold, OW Emerald.
Posts: 3,023
Too Late to be looking for June/July award space only 2 months out. Those business class award spaces ones sold out in June/July 2018.
Your better bet is, to combine AA and JAL and fly out of a JAL gateway with more space (LAX/ORD/SEA/DFW).
What dates exactly are you looking for?
If you dont have any specific dates in mind, then I suggest you put on hold July 22nd or 23rd direct JAL flights NOW!
then find the return in the next few days before the hold expires.
Your better bet is, to combine AA and JAL and fly out of a JAL gateway with more space (LAX/ORD/SEA/DFW).
What dates exactly are you looking for?
If you dont have any specific dates in mind, then I suggest you put on hold July 22nd or 23rd direct JAL flights NOW!
then find the return in the next few days before the hold expires.