Award pricing way out of sync with chart
 

Hey all, I'm trying to book J from NRT/HND to JFK, and while it is giving me availability, the pricing is seriously out of whack with the award chart. It should be 50k, but I'm seeing 153k from NRT, and 160 from HND. Any thoughts on what might be going on here? Thanks!

flex award

Welcome to the JAL forum.

Unfortunately this is not a bug. JAL has implemented dynamic award pricing for Y, P, and C awards.

https://www.jal.co.jp/en/jmb/award_renewal/

Welcome to dynamic award pricing. I recently looked for business class availability to DFW in October. The required mileage amounts were horrific.They ranged from 178,000 to 226,000 miles -- one way!!

J​​​​ust another reason not to be loyal to JAL (or any airline for that matter). Lately I just book whichever airline best meets my needs for each individual trip. My next two family trips (four of us in paid J and PE) will be on ANA. In years past, I was a die-hard JAL loyalist. No more.

My main spends have been JAL F upgrades, JAL F flights, and partner flights. Which are all still pretty good value with JMB. So I still see good reason to stick to JMB

Plan early, book early, and you will be ok.
JAL is of course trying to lose the stigma of "no award space available when you need to use miles" by doing dynamic award pricing.
Just look at those dates with "horrendous mileage price" as dates that are technically not available with miles, but JAL is giving you an opportunity to still use miles if you MUST use miles to travel. It is an allure.
So, plan early, book early, when the mileage is still low/reasonable, and you will be ok.

Is there a dramatic change recently?

I remember one month ago check Alaska website YVR-NRT J is available nearly every day, now it's all gone till the schedule ends with none left

check other routes NRT-SEA NRT-LAX is same thing

Apart from newly opened routes, or routes that gets F added, finding premium cabin availability nearly every day is almost certainly a mistake in the system or a sudden spike that is like to disappear again.

You did not look at Seattle just when it was released? That would have had a boom of availability, but once booked it would follow the more normal availability.