Right. and if J seats open up on that flight, you need to call in to make the change. There shouldn't be any additional charges since you've paid the 55k J award price already.

Which routes do generally have better availability (NRT-LAX/ORD/JFK)? I need to go from CGK to any city in US, as i would need to connect from there to MEX (probably not a problem on the same award). In April.
Right now on ba.com the availability for First is zero. Even for the coming days it is close to zero on any routes...
What are your experiences with last-minute availability? Since this is a trip i MUST take in the first week of April, even though i am flexible with dates, i just wanted to know if it's worth waiting for space to open, or better search for other ways... Thx!

Of the three...I'd say last minute availability is probably best with ORD. But I'd expect to find options for all three. As someone also answered this question on the JAL board...there's also DFW in J.

But since you will be booking in April, you're subject to the new award grid pricing.

I guess some people are booking speculative tickets really far out to lock in pricing (i.e. the current award chart) and then expect to change the date down the road (i.e. to any time after March 21) with the hope that they do not incur a re-pricing of the reward.

OK thanks. Another question: if i am looking to fly, say, CGK-NRT-LAX-MEX, what shall i search for on ba.com before calling AA?
I mean, if i search the entire route, obviously there will be zero availability visible. The partial route CGK-NRT-LAX yields something, but not in F. Maybe i only shall search for the "main" segment, i.e. NRT-LAX, and then if it's available in F, call AA so that they play around with positioning flights CGK-NRT and LAX-MEX?

Search segment by segment for all segments (use AA for AA segments - I've found BA doesn't always accurately reflect AA space) and then call it in. Note the flights and dates so you can feed them to that AAgent. No phone fee since JAL isn't bookable online.

I currently hold a Y ticket to Tokyo on JL for October and was hoping to upgrade it to a J within 14 days of departure. However because of the devaluation coming later this month, I'm thinking to change the ticket to 330 days out and upgrade to a J seat to lock in the lower award price. And if all goes well, I will do a date change back to October when the J availability opens up. Will this work? How many date changes am I allowed for an award ticket? Thanks for the help!

This will work well as long as J availability opens up later. If it doesn't, you no longer have an award ticket for that date and will have to buy a last minute fare to TYO for that date.

I asked this on the JMB forum but was told to ask here instead:

I called AA to book. It's showing as 'on request'. Meanwhile ba.com is still showing availability. How does it work? If it takes 3-5 days for JL and AA to work it out, could I lose the seats, in the meantime, to someone using Avios or directly with JL?

So all the AA bookings are done through a manual request process? Wow...

As soon as AA puts it on hold and issues you a PNR, the seat is reserved for you (so long as you book before the hold expires). If BA is still showing availability it is either because there was more than one seat available or because BA sometimes shows phantom availability (you can use JAL's search to see if the seat is really available). I suppose it is also possible that AA screwed up, but you would be able to check that by looking at your itinerary on AA's website.

I called AA again. They said they have grabbed the seats and the ticket should issue in 24-48 hours. The PNR is there showing 'on request'.

I'll keep my fingers crossed. BA and JAL both are still showing availability. BA is showing 4 in J. JAL is showing a lot in J although the website is very hard for me to understand.

I had a similar experience when I booked my JL TPAC award. BA doesn't always update JL availability right away. If I were to guess, when you check BA after a few hours, you may see the updated availability.

After numerous attempts with BA's phantom availability, the AA agent and I finally found dates where only 1 of the 2 availability was phantom. Now I have some questions I wonder if anyone can help.

I have 1 ticket booked as TPE-NRT-LAX / Business+First and another 1 ticket booked as TPE-NRT-LAX / Economy+First on consecutive dates.

1. Can I make changes to the TPE-NRT-LAX ticket if Business becomes available on TPE-NRT sector after it's booked, regardless the 3/22 date?

2. I believe regardless the TPE-NRT sector, the award is priced as First, so would I be allowed to change the dates (hoping to get two on the same dates) after 3/22?

Thanks!

I just booked two F awards on JAL using AA miles, but I am a bit confused regarding the amount of miles they want to charge me. I successfully found 2 seats in F for LHR-HND-KUL, itinerary as follow :
JL044 773 (F) London Heathrow 19:00 (3rd Nov) Tokyo Haneda 15:55 (4th Nov)
JL723 789 (J) Tokyo Narita 11:10 (5th Nov) Kuala Lumpur 18:10 (5th Nov)

Then I rang AA customer service, who found the seats and blocked them for me, but he told me they would charge 70k + 30k per person for the whole itinerary.
Does anybody have any clue why?
- I checked and the itinerary doesn't seem to exceed the MPM.
- There seems to be a fare available between LON and KUL with JAL
- The agent first told me because it was a mix of F + J, but that doesn't make sense
- Then, he couldn't explain why they would charge that way

Any insight would be helpful, thanks a lot!

I don't think you are allowed to go to Asia 1 to connect for a flight between Asia 2 and Europe.

Had it been LHR-HKG-KUL then it will probably not have separate charge.

I've ticketed a JAL F LAX-NRT placeholder in January but my preferred travel dates are at the end of September/beginning of October. Anyone want to speculate what my chances are of being able to change my ticket to those dates? According to the Wiki, it states that JAL releases award seats ~14 days prior, but I have also seen people mention 30-31 days prior to departure. Any insight on that?