From late March through to the end of this year (December 21st, to be precise), Japan Airlines has made a heap of First Class award seats available.
Many days have at least two seats, while others have 4 or more. Feel like taking the whole family to Japan in First Class? This is the opportunity.
You are first to know – to my knowledge, no other site has published this yet. Here’s a sampling of availability for two passengers in First Class later this year.
This is April:
And here is July:
Many days have more seats than this available too.
I flew Japan Airlines First Class on this route early last year and had a blast – here’s the review of the outbound, and of the return.
This availability runs all the way through to just before Christmas at this point, and there is minimal availability in Business – First is where it’s at.
Which points or miles?
The two key points you’d be looking to use would either be Asia Miles or Qantas Points. If you have a stash of AAdvantage miles to burn before the impending devaluation then this is one award that actually isn’t changing price, sticking at 60,000 miles before and after the changes.
- AAdvantage would cost 60,000 AAdvantage miles one way
- Qantas Points would be 108,000 Qantas Points one way
- Asia Miles would be 120,000 miles return, or 70,000 miles one way.
Hi Keith, great review! I am thinking of taking my wife on first class to Japan and when I looked through the Qantas website, there was 0 first class seats. What is the best way to redeem these JAL flights using Qantas FF?
Thanks!
You’ll need to research availability via another source (if you don’t want to deal with the Qantas call centre to find you the seats) – probably the British Airways website. And then call Qantas FF to book.
Hi Keith,
Great article!
I just wanted to check if you had any success ticketing a one way first class using asiamiles for JAL? From the asiamiles award website they’ve marked JAL redemptions only available for return trips but it would be interesting to know if it’s still possible to redeem one way on JAL.
Hey Ted – you’re right, to my knowledge they are return only with JL. Totally forgot about that. Will update the post.
Keith, how are you finding these seats, and what’s the best way of redeeming an award for them? I’m thinking of buying the necessary AAdvantage Miles under the current offer and redeeming them for travel in late March, but I can’t figure out how I’d do it.
Hi Kyle, To find availability on Japan Airlines, you need to sign up to British Airways. That will allow you to search for flight availability and then you ring AAdvantage with the date you want to travel and the flight number.
I pulled the trigger on J seats last night on as part of a South Pacific -> Europe AA redemption to fly just before Xmas 2016. Good thing I had researched the flights before you published this as now it has been taken up by the big bloggers, and I expect a bunch of Americans descending on our shores shortly.
But this has been on the website on this availability for a month now.. what’s new?
Me finding out and publishing it, I guess!
Fair call!
Great flight, I went with my wife and youngest daughter, 3 in First and 3 attendants, so we eating suites and sleeping suites.