lrdpenn

Summer 2023 is likely not going to be the season for good deals to/through Japan

skimthetrees

Most currently available awards might be booked for August. You missed the early window for best August availability. JAL might make more available as time goes on if loads stay light.

In your specific case you are running into multiple gating issues. There is no SGN-HND award space in August now, only limited dates SGN-NRT. In addition, the SGN-NRT flights do not meet MCT for connecting to the NRT-SFO flight so that is the main reason you are not finding anything in August to SFO. You need to look for a new US gateway where the flight meets MCT. SEA is one such destination but currently there is only one date I see with availability in August to SEA, 8/21 SGN-SEA. This seems to have a married segment issue though so you cannot book SGN-NRT and NRT-SEA together on 8/21 using AA, although AS does support it. You can use multi-city to book through on 8/21 for 90k miles in J. Or, for more options, book two one-ways to create a stopover in Tokyo, SGN-TYO and TYO-SFO.

umc

Thank you so much for your insights. I didn’t anticipate award tickets for summer would dry up that fast. I did SGN-NRT-SAN-SMF before. So, thank you for suggesting NRT-SEA as another option. I’ll keep checking.

tfizzle

I'm seeing LAX-HND business class in may for 60k miles on alaska air, but the same flight on aa.com is llike 200,000 miles. What do you think it going on? would aa honor that 60k pricing

avidchurner

Does F awards release back into inventory when canceled?

skimthetrees

Doubtful. Alaska Airlines has been updating their systems to handle a new combined award chart and there have been very recent reports (in the last couple of days) of bugs in the availability shown on the AS website. If you cannot confirm the availability with another partner (BA, CX, QF) then it is probably phantom on AS and AA will never match phantom availability.

I have not personally seen problems with AS showing non-stop JAL flights. For the LAX-HND flight you searched on AS was that a non-stop or with connections?

estnet

Is the aa flight on JL? It is most likely that the 200k is AA flight which is "dynamic" pricing

saaveraward

100% this. That flight isnt on JL metal

thinkmars

I'm trying to figure out why AA award search doesn't show JL award space between Seoul and Tokyo.
Both BA and QF award searches show availability on GMP-HND 1/15/23 (and almost all surrounding dates), but nothing shows up on AA.
Is there a way to still book the award using AA?
I called AA AUS today and the guy said he doesn't see the award space either.

skimthetrees

Sort of. AA appears to think GMP-HND is only available as part of a married segment itinerary. If you search GMP-OSA on 1/15/23 you get GMP-HND-ITM. You could try booking it and dropping HND-ITM, not sure if they would be able to handle the drop if they think it's a married segment but worth a try. Otherwise, carry-on and walk off at HND. Does HND require you to pick up luggage for this International to Domestic transfer? If so, pick up luggage and walk off at HND if you can't drop the segment.

teltehdog

So I was able to find a AA reward from HND to ORD first-class tickets for 80k and I also got a business class ticket for 60k on the same flight for my daughter.

The issue is this we live in BOS, last week I saw that there was a reward ticket same flight to HND-BOS instead of HND-ORD. So I cancel my daughter business ticket and rebook it with points took 1hr for the point to show up on AA account. My issue is this I don't want to cancel my first-class ticket and wait for the point to show up and rebook again and if someone else books it up now I lose the first-class ticket completely.

Can I call AA and have them move my final landing to BOS instead of ORD or just buy the ticket from ORD to BOS?

guv1976

How soon is this travel?

teltehdog

3 month time

swgsword

You should be able to call or tweet them to ask them to rebook / reissue the ticket as an even exchange. Alternatively, if ORD-BOS becomes available in saver inventory (T) you can request them to add it as well.

guv1976

I suggest that you immediately put the HND-BOS F itinerary on a complimentary hold on aa.com or on the AA app before the seats disappear. (You do not need to have sufficient miles in your AAdvantage account to place an award on hold.) Once you see the page indicating that your award is held, note the PNR (record-locator) code. Then, immediately cancel the HND-ORD F award. Check your AAdvantage account an hour or two later to see if your miles have been redeposited. If they have, go back to your held HND-BOS reservation and purchase it. If they have not, then call AA for assistance.

Note that because these are partner awards, you might have to call AA to request refund of the taxes on the first award, even if the miles from that award are redeposited automatically.