Using JAL miles for award flights is a bit of a gold mine if you can take advantage of their extremely valuable stopover program.

For this post, I’m not going to get into the details of the elite status aspect of the program and instead focus on the redemption side of the program.

There are now two banks that transfer to JAL miles

For quite a while, no banks transferred points over to JAL miles (I’m not counting the shortly-lived Barclays option). However, in 2025, there are now two major programs that transfer to Japan Airlines:

• Bilt transfers points at a 1:1 ratio, almost instantly
• Capital One transfers points at a 4:3 ratio

One thing to remember is that there is typically a 60-day waiting period before you can redeem miles from a new account. However, if the points come from Bilt or Capital One, the waiting period drops to seven days. So, create your JAL Mileage Bank accounts now to avoid the delay later.

Award flights booked with JAL miles can be booked 360 days in advance

As a planner, I love being able to book awards well far in advance. I feel like I can lock down my preferred dates of travel before the majority of other award seekers. And so the earlier the schedule is released, the better it is.

But perhaps what matters more is being able to book awards before those with a large balance of miles with U.S. programs are able to book. Those programs generally open schedules and award bookings 11 months in advance. So if you can find a program that allows awards weeks before the comparable U.S. airline (here, American or Alaska), you can generally book what you want.

Award flights booked with JAL miles can be booked 360 days in advance, giving plenty of time to redeem before American or Alaska can book those flights. That’s great! If you can’t find your preferred flights far in advance, Japan Airlines also releases some extra award space at the last minute. If you’re looking for seats for the whole family, you might need to book far in advance and hope more space opens at the last minute.

Award cancel fees aren’t bad

Need to change or cancel an award flight? JAL varies the price between domestic and international flights:

• Canceling a flight
  • Domestic flights:
    • ¥1,000 to cancel an award
  • International flights:
    • ¥3,100 to cancel an award
• Changing a flight
  • Domestic flights:
    • Not possible
  • International flights:
    • Not possible

Award booked with Japan Airlines miles are based on routes, zones, and distance

JAL awards (domestic)

Rather confusingly, JAL maintains what feels like two separate sites. One handles domestic flights while another handles international flights. It can be confusing figuring out if you’re logging into the correct site.

If you’re taking a direct, nonstop flight between two airports, the prices will follow zone rates as shown below. Not taking a nonstop routing? Well, then your price will follow specific pricing by route if the connection is the same day and fewer than a six-hour layover. We’re not going to call out those mileage prices as it would blow up things quite a bit. Instead, refer to their website for the relevant pricing.

JAL awards (international)

If you can find saver award seats with JAL, you’ll find a relatively cheap award chart. Japan Airlines Mileage Bank does have significantly higher rates for what they call “PLUS” fares (not applicable for first class). This is where you can pay more to have access to expanded award seats. However, you’ll find it’s hardly the case where these can be helpful.

Here is the pricing for PLUS fares, which can get absurdly high. Sure, it’s good to have the option, but up to half a million miles to fly one-way in business class? Not sure who would take them up on that offer.

oneworld awards

Ready to introduce another way that JAL determines pricing? Well, their oneworld partner awards follow a distance-based approach. First, a reminder on which airlines are in the oneworld alliance:

This chart is in place if you’re booking an award that includes flights on at least two oneworld airlines.

Two caveats to this award chart:

• For AA and Alaska flights with only two cabins, first class will price as business
• First class awards are not possible for Malaysia Airlines

We’ll get to this in a little bit, but oneworld awards come with the ability to have up to seven stopovers.

Partner flights

Confused yet on all the options? Well, get ready for partner awards. This covers flights on all non-oneworld airlines and flights that include just one oneworld airline. Here are all the airlines that count for this award chart that can be paired with Japan Airlines:

And here is the partner award chart:

As with the oneworld airline chart, there are a few caveats:

• For AA and Alaska flights with only two cabins, first class will price as business
• First class awards are not possible for Air France, Emirates, Korean Airlines, and Malaysia Airlines

As with oneworld awards, stopovers are possible, but you’ll only get up to three here.

What are the sweet spots?

Flying in JAL business class

JAL charges a hefty premium for first class on its own flights. However, they offer a very reasonable redemption rate for business class. Flying between Japan and North America in business class for only 55,000 miles? Yes, please! How about flying between Manila and Japan for only 24,000 JAL miles in business class? That’s a steal!

It’s as low as 36,000 miles to try out first class

Let’s say you really want to try out JAL first class. What’s the sweet spot in that cabin? Try flying between Tokyo and Hong Kong for as low as 36,000 miles. Sure, it won’t give you a long time to bask in the service level and cabin. But that route is five hours long, so it’s not bad on a per-hour basis.

Want another cheap route given the distance flown? Try the route between Tokyo and Doha, which sits at 12.5 hours in length. However, the price is as cheap as 70,000 miles for the journey in first class.

Otherwise, it’s not a terrible deal to fly first class between North America and Japan at 110,000 for low season and 140,000 for high season. That turns into a great deal if you pair it with the stopover program below.

Just remember that if the flight is within 11 months of departure and you’re not planning on stopovers, check the pricing using AA miles first.

Emirates business class flights

Emirates is known for ultra-luxurious first class cabins and for linking together much of the world. While first class awards aren’t possible with JAL, you can book business class and still arrive well-rested. Got time to spare and want to travel between two corners of the world? Fly between Los Angeles and Sydney for 130,000 miles in business class and stay a few days in Dubai for free.

Or, fly between the United Kingdom and Perth for just 85,000 miles in business class, including a potential free stopover.

Stopovers galore!

Did you know that JAL wants everyone to know about their stopover policy? They advertise it plenty on their website.

Just look at an example they give. Tokyo – Los Angeles (stopover) – New York (stopover) – Orlando (stopover) – Chicago – Tokyo for 70,000 JAL miles in economy. Want that route in business class? Only 130,000 miles when booked as a partner award.

Book it as a oneworld award (throw in a segment on Alaska Airlines) and you can stopover in Chicago too. Plus, the oneworld award chart has a lower price for business class for the same number of miles on this route. That means you can spend only 120,000 miles. Alaska flies the LAX-JFK route, so just choosing that airline for one segment means an even more cost-effective trip.

However, there are a few rules to note about stopovers:

• Itineraries starting in Japan cannot have a stopover in Japan.
• Only two segments in Japan are permitted.
• Each city can only be included a maximum of three times.
• One surface sector (open-jaw) is permitted and counts as a stopover.
  • The surface sector distance cannot be greater in length than the length of the journey up to that point.
• The point of origin cannot later be a stop along the journey.
• No backtracking to the country of origin after leaving it.

Infant awards are 10% of the miles price on some flights

Back when we flew internationally with an infant, we ended up sometimes paying a pretty penny to allow our child to sit in our lap. Without getting into the debate on the safety of the lap child, I can say it sometimes got expensive.

With most airlines, you would be forced to pay 10% of the cash price of the ticket. Say you found a flight for 75,000 miles in business class one-way. But if you want to bring your lap infant, you’d have to pay 10% of the cash fare, which could be thousands of dollars. A one-way flight is painfully priced high, and you might pay less if doing a roundtrip, but it’s still quite a dent. I’d say the rough average of what we paid for an infant was around $600 for the ticket.

Infant awards booked for travel on JAL with JAL miles are just 10% of the miles used for the adult fare. That’s awesome! However, JAL has a footnote that awards booked for travel on partners cannot be issued an award price. Instead, they will be charged an infant cash rate. Leave it to JAL to have a confusing system to price infant awards.

How to best search for availability?

First, it’s important to note that Japan Airlines maintains a mileage calculator that you can reference as you’re pricing out your awards. It doesn’t contain routing rules in there, so you could just keep saying you’re going back and forth between two city pairs indefinitely and it will calculate a total distance. Note that it shows the distance traveled, not the price the system will charge.

I do not like using the JAL website for searching awards. That’s because the interface is just so outdated. You’re supposed to search for a specific partner on an exact date. If the flight exists, the process works. But if it fails, there’s no way to know if flights exist on neighboring dates or if you chose an incorrect time. You just have to start over. The system freezes in your start and end points, so if you are flexible in your trip, you’re going to get frustrated.

Instead, consider using seats.aero for searching your JAL flights. However, searching for anything further out than three months will cost you.

The free point.me award tool will help you find award space since the program is a Bilt transfer partner. Or, you can choose your favorite award search tool.

Do JAL miles expire?

Yes, JAL miles will expire three years after earning them. To be more specific, it’s at the end of the month 36 months later, Japan time.

Miles cannot be extended, so do not transfer in more miles than you know what to do with. To us, that seems like asking for trouble.

Suggested reading:

• Destinations we’ve visited
• How to Travel with Kids
• How to Book Award Travel Like a Pro