Great Japan Airlines Business Class Award Space, Use Your American or Alaska Miles Now

by Gary Leff

Using American miles to fly between the US and Asia can be a challenge for two passengers. Those based at the DFW hub have an even greater challenge — tremendous competition for award seats from other frequent flyers, and that most of the oneworld Asia service is on American which isn’t great about releasing premium cabin award space to begin with.

It’s notable that Japan Airlines has really good award availability for two passengers in business class Dallas Fort-Worth – Tokyo Narita if booked way in advance. That’s useful too because if you can find the award space DFW is a great airport for connecting.

Here’s Dallas Fort-Worth – Tokyo Narita availability for two business class award seats in February:

Booking:

  • Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan charges 60,000 miles each way for business class to Japan and North Asia. Continue onwards to Southeast Asia and the price becomes 65,000.

  • American Airlines AAdvantage charges 60,000 miles each way for business class to Japan and ‘Asia 1’. Continue onwards to ‘Asia 2’ and the price becomes 70,000.

  • This is a good opportunity to use British Airways Avios as well, because although they charge 90,000 for business just for Dallas – Tokyo each way without connections, you won’t be hit with big fuel surcharges to Japan (or if connecting to South Korea or Hong Kong).

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. As usual with Alaska the problem is, as always, only one premium cabin award per flight. The “couples curse”.

  3. Expert flyer shows no JAL. BA does not have this nor does AA. How did you search for this?

  5. It seems that JAL only releases seats approximately 10 months prior to dates that work for you. BA has been very cooperative with me to locate availability for March of 2019 but has advised to try again at end of April or early May.
    Speaking of BA, if you able to contact them via the UK office rather than the India office you will get great service from knowledgeable people. India just is always a pain in the butt and they will even go so far as to argue about BA services along with very long wait times

  6. I’d also like to know what tool to use to get a monthly calendar like you show. Thanks!

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