What you're describing is effectively changing an F award to a J award. Since your NRT-ORD segment is the only one in international F, taking a voluntary downgrade on that segment means you need a different type of award, which I think we all expect would trigger a fee and repricing. This wouldn't necessarily be the case for awards that have multiple segments in international F (downgrading one int'l segment from F to J doesn't change the award type if there are other segments still in int'l F).

In your case, you might consider changing your routing to go HAN-HKG-HND/NRT-ORD -- if you can manage to find HKG-HND or HKG-NRT on one of the handful of flights where CX offers F, the segment in CX F should mean the award would still be an F award even if you downgraded NRT-ORD, which *should* mean there would be no fee/repricing.

That would not work. It's even harder to get F seats on CX than on JL. I don't see any F award space on CX flights from Han-NRT at all for Jan.-Feb. 2017. And It doesn't look like the timing of the arrival would be in sync with the departure of JL 10.

I have to decide if I want to take a chance on finding one F seat on JL 10 sometime between Feb. 20 and March 13 and just change the dates or pay the $150 now to change to a J award for current ticket and change the flying dates. There seems to be plenty of J seats on JL 10 but I could always fly home on JL 12 NRT-DFW and then to MCI.

It might not work in a single day, but it's absolutely possible to book HAN-HKG on KA (on those days the morning flight operates), connect to CX HKG-HND or HKG-NRT on the same day, overnight in TYO (<24 hours = still one award) and take JL10 the following morning. And IME CX F is not particularly difficult to come by on HKG-HND and HKG-NRT.

Since this would be the return flights after a 2 week vacation in Vietnam, I would probably not want to add so much more travel time home. Plus there would be the added expense of a hotel room in Tokyo for the overnight. Good idea, just not for me.

If you have enough miles in one family member's account, you could keep the F ticket and book a J ticket for 55K. If an F seat opens up on your preferred travel date, you could cancel the J ticket and pay $150. If there is no F availability, you could cancel the F ticket and use the J ticket. Unless there was a schedule change that would allow a free cancellation, you would lose $150 but you would have 12.5K more miles than you expected if there were no F awards was allowed.

How can you have 2 tickets for the same person on the same flight, just in different classes? I'm not traveling alone so I need 2 seats on the same day. I don't have enough miles to book 2 second tickets, only one. I don't want to travel on a different day than my husband.

I believe the other poster is saying you can have placeholder reservations on 2x different days. If you have J booked on the day you want to travel and F opens up then you can just cancel your J reservation and request a date change on your F reservation bumping it back to your desired date of travel ^

Keep the F reservation you currently have
Change the J reservation for your husband to the date you want
Book a new J reservation for yourself on the date you want

In the end, if F is available, you book into F, cancel the J ticket. If J is available, cancel the F ticket. Either way, you'll be paying 150 to redeposit.

This is what I will do. I will book a placeholder J reservation for any date I can find for 55K miles now. I still have 95K miles in my account. The date I want is a month away from opening for award booking so I will make the date changes for both mine and my husbands tickets in a few weeks. Thanks all for the advice.

Add: I did get a placeholder J award for 55K miles ticketed for a different date than the F award. I'll keep whichever one allows me to travel on a desirable date and cancel the other . I consider this a $150 insurance policy for being able to take my vacation trip at a time that works for me.

wait, there's a $150 redeposit fee? think I might've finally figured out why I was wrongly charged for a change to my award booking that I'm still waiting for a refund on...

CX doesn't operate 3-class service on the HKG-NRT sector. On the HKG-HND sector, only one flight (after Nov) departing at 8:40am has 3-class service and will work to price it as an F award. JL may have 3-class service on CGK-NRT departing at 9:25pm.

Tell that to CX520 some days.

Not in Jan/Feb 2017 when OP hopes to travel. CX is retiring their 747s thru the end of 2016 and with that their 3-class service to NRT. Last 3-class CX520 scheduled for end of this month.

Long time reader, first post.
Finally was able to book 2 NRT-BOS(JL) BOS-LGA (AA)tickets in J for November 2016 since the NRT-JFK route is basically nonexistent. NRT-BOS route will change from their angled seats to lie-flat (SS9) product starting June 11, so good alternative to the usual JL hubs. Great knowledgeable AA agent.

When does JL release F award seats? I can't find two F award seats JFK or ORD to NRT and/or back again...not this week, next week, or 11 months from now, or anything in between???