Phreal

Anyone know if the SFO route will change to the 777 or even the 789 with the higher J count seats by July/August 2025 to HND? It's currently being flown on the 789 with the E92 config.

CPH-Flyer

Even JAL does not know what's going to happen in July/August 2025.....

jamienbaker

Precisely correct. I have four laptops/browsers set up for this weekend's release, only need two J seats. Booking with Avios and have nailed down the minute availability opens each day. This is war. And I love it.

nas6034

DELETE

RealHJ

It's a sad state of things it's come down to this. But, it is what it is.

You do know that with Avios you can only book 355 days out, right? So, with Avios you can only book a JL award if someone hasn't booked it yet using JL or CX miles first over the preceding 5 days.

izzik

While it's not plentiful, it's also not impossible. Looking at JAL award availability US to Tokyo nonstop, I see 1-2 J seats for parts of April 2025. Maybe not the A350 JFK route but it's not like it's hopeless.

jamienbaker

Yeah, I could have converted points to CX, but in the event I scuttle the trip, those points would be of no real future use to me. Avios retains greater long term value for me, so it's a calculated risk.

Jamie

pushka

With JAL awards opening at midnight that means 12.30 - 1 am log on for Australians. Qantas opens up JAL award availability the same time JAL releases it, 360 days out. Grabbed two J seats from Australia last night for May. Also obtained two J award seats for way over in April previously. No F on this type of plane or would have taken those. JAL keeps switching planes in Australia.

cascade

What are the chances and timeline of a pair of F seats clearing the waitlist out of JFK in the summer? I've had 200k JAL miles for a while now, bookings were cancelled twice when Japan was still not open to visitors. When they began allowing tourists, availability at standard J levels was nonexistent. These miles expire at the end of the year and things are looking grim. Original plans were for roundtrip J but I'm settling for one way F in hopes of just using them before they expire. Have been on the waitlist for months and no luck yet, and keep doing the cycle every week of re-waitlisting. Would be a shame to throw in the towel and use these miles on AA.

RealHJ

How you are able to waitlist on JAL? JAL award pricing is dynamic, AFAIK JL JMB doesn't do "waitlisting" anymore (like NH still does). Once the 2 J seats are gone (within minutes, if not seconds, at 360 days out), they are unlikely to come back, unless the pax cancel (and there's been no further award bookings at higher price levels since) or the flight is very empty and JAL releases more seats at the normal pricing closer in.

Your best bet is to reserve at 0:00 JST at 360 days out when the inventory is released.

CPH-Flyer

​​​​​​They do waitlist for F, as that has not gone dynamic. Yet.

jamienbaker

Success. Grabbed 2 J awards for 5/10/25 within five seconds of their release. Booked via CX. No difficulty making seat assignments on JL site, though on 789 JL appears to block window seats in the forward cabin (presumably for members with status). So slumming it in row 8. Still a victory.

rufflesinc

Hello! Not sure if you remember me, I see you're also slumming it in JL instead of CX F! Its been a long time and I'm finalizing my first intl trip , on JL. Snagged new F from DFW on outbound, old F to ORD coming back (DFW had availability in F but no J , so no dice)
I only have CX AM from capital one and only enough for 2 F oneways , my main source of points is chase. So I found a hack to book with avios at 360 out ...!

EK can also book JL awards but only J, not F, and their calendar opens at 360 days. They will hold them for you, for a long time, at least as long as the 5 days until you can book with avios. Don't even need skywards miles. Once BA window opened, I canceled EK reservation and the seats immediately were available.

BA is great for lap infant but that is only the return. The outbound I booked using CX for F and EK for J (had expiring EK miles needed to burn). The blogs say CX will charge 10-25% cash fare and EK 10% cash fare, so the bet seems to be to put the lap infant on the EK J ticket ??

edit: I believe it's also possible to put award on hold using CX , as I did it by accident when I couldn't complete payment on my phone. Don't know how long as I called in right after to complete payment and ticket.

RealHJ

It's best to refrain from doing so. It gums up availability for everyone else, and the inventory is not guaranteed to go back to the available pool when you cancel the hold. For example, if others have booked at a higher rate since, the base price inventory may not become available when the hold (or temporary ticket) are cancelled. I have monitored what happens in case of cancellations, and sometimes it may go back to the base price inventory, but other times it doesn't. In other words, it's not a sure thing and not something you can rely on.

rufflesinc

I don't doubt your observation about inventory not returning after cancellation. But as someone who booked with UA and AA miles before the pandemic when cancellation fees were $200 a pop but elites got them waived and bragged that holding multiple tickets and cancelling all but one of them was part of the bennies, well they ruined it first

I think that holding for five days at the very opening of calendar is unlikely to be significant compared to what elites did before cancel fees went away