Japan Airlines Awards Can Now Be Searched, Booked Through American Airlines' Website
While American Airlines isn't exactly making it cheap or easy to redeem miles on its own flights, it's been consistently adding functionality to book partner awards through its website. On Thursday, American added its 16th partner for online award booking.
As of Thursday morning, Japan Airlines awards can be searched and booked on AA.com. This is excellent news for those looking for the easiest way of searching for awards on Japan Airlines' amazing economy, business and first class products. (Unfortunately, premium economy awards aren't bookable at this time.)
American Airlines allows anyone to search a month of award availability at a time. Thanks to the option to limit search results to "nonstop only," you can easily find which dates have award availability on the direct flight through AA.com, even if you end up booking through another mileage program.
But that's not necessary, since AA's rates for JAL awards are very reasonable. Flights between the US and Asia Region 1, which includes Japan and South Korea, cost:
- 35,000 AA miles each way in economy
- 60,000 AA miles each way in business class
- 80,000 AA miles each way in first class
To test out the functionality, I searched for an award from New York JFK to Tokyo. This is a nonstop route that would only be bookable with AA miles if Japan Airlines awards were showing online. Sure enough, Japan Airlines' wide-open economy award availability is on full display:
If anyone is looking for a last-minute trip from NYC to Tokyo, first-class award availability on Japan Airlines is pretty wide open for the next two weeks. 14 hours in JAL's excellent first class product will only cost you 80,000 AAdvantage miles:
Since I have free award cancellation as a benefit of my American Airlines Executive Platinum elite status, I went forward with ticketing a Japan Airlines business class award to check if the process is fully functional. Less than 15 minutes later, the ticket status switched from "on request" to "ticketed":
With this addition, there are now 16 AA partners who's awards you can search and book on AA.com:
- Air Tahiti Nui
- Alaska Airways
- British Airways
- Cape Air
- Etihad
- Fiji Airways
- Finnair
- Hawaiian Airlines
- Iberia
- Japan Airlines
- Malaysia Airlines
- Qantas Airways
- Qatar Airways
- Royal Jordanian Airlines
- S7 Airlines
- SriLankan Airlines
This addition leaves just two Oneworld airlines and two non-Oneworld airline partners that aren't searchable and bookable through AA.com:
- Cathay Pacific
- China Southern Airlines
- LATAM Airlines
- Seaborne Airlines / Silver Airways
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