As I recently wrote about, we’re taking a winter ski trip to Niseko, Japan, staying at four different points properties. I’ve already shared the return portion of the trip that I booked, where I’ll be flying ANA’s A380 first class and Hawaiian’s 787 first class. However, I didn’t finalize the outbound portion of the trip until last minute, for good reason.
While the product review might not be that original, I think most people will appreciate the quantity of first class award seats that we managed to book…
In this post:
Booking half a Japan Airlines first class cabin with points
When I take my review trips and book flights in international first class, people sometimes make one of two points:
- “You’re traveling alone, so this award availability isn’t useful for those who travel as couples or families, since it’s hard to find first class availability for multiple people”
- “You have the flexibility to travel whenever, so first class awards aren’t useful for those who need to be somewhere on a specific day”
I hear you, but I’ll counter the point by saying that we just snagged four Japan Airlines first class award seats on a single flight from San Francisco (SFO) to Tokyo (HND), on the exact date we needed. And we paid just 80,000 American AAdvantage miles plus $5.60 per person in taxes.
Let me provide a bit of background. We’re going skiing with friends, and of course we were perfectly happy flying there separately, and just meeting in Japan. Japan is not exactly an easy destination to redeem miles to. Our hotel reservations were for specific dates, and with hotels in ski season needing to be canceled 60 days in advance, we had very little flexibility.
So we did what I usually recommend — we locked in business class awards in advance that we were happy with (with AAdvantage miles, so there were no redeposit fees), and then kept checking closer to departure to see if anything better opened up.
Long story short, the persistence paid off, and four first class award seats opened up on the same flight, around four days before departure. My apologies to the other first class passenger. 😉
How did we find four first class award seats on one flight?
Finding the first class award availability was easy. I’m a blogger, so of course I just called up American, said “hey, I’m a blogger, make those award seats available on your partner airline plz,” and a few minutes later, I had a ticket.
I kid, of course, but it’s amazing how often people seem to think that happens. 😉 I have access to exactly the same tools as everyone else, I just have some experience, and am also really persistent.
So, let me share how I approached the process of booking these seats: Japan Airlines is pretty consistent about how it releases first class award availability:
- It makes one first class award seat available as soon as the schedule opens
- As the departure date approaches, unsold seats are generally made available with miles; in my experience, all but one to three first class seats will eventually be released as award seats, and the closer to departure you are, the more seats are made available
To start, I researched which Japan Airlines flights on the day we needed actually had a lot of first class seats for sale. Japan Airlines’ 777s have eight first class seats, and if there’s not currently award availability, then there will be at most seven seats for sale. That’s because the airline always makes one first class award seat available when the schedule opens, so that means one person has already snagged a seat (if all eight seats were for sale, there would also be one award seat).
You can see how many seats are available for sale either through a tool like ExpertFlyer, or you can use just use Google Flights, and see how many first class tickets it’ll still sell you on a flight.
Just as an example, below is a Google Flights search, to see which Japan Airlines flights from San Francisco to Tokyo have seven first class seats left for sale.
After entering the parameters (first class, nonstop, Japan Airlines), I pulled up the calendar, and as you can see, quite a few days over the next couple of months have seven of the eight first class seats for sale.
From there, it’s just a function of being persistent, and constantly checking award availability. Now, tools like Seats.aero specifically have a Japan Airlines first class award finder, which comes in handy. Here’s the thing, though — these awards are super competitive to actually book, especially with tools like this, which display availability in such an easy way. Seats.aero doesn’t update in real time, so there’s typically a bit of a lag.
While I keep an eye on Seats.aero, often I use it primarily to figure out availability patterns, and then religiously check aa.com for availability, realizing that it helps to have a leg up, and book those seats as soon as they become available.
I noticed most availability from the US was only being made available within a week or so of departure. Starting at that point, I’d check aa.com availability on the route very often. I even saved the exact URL that performed the search for that date and route as a bookmark. So for the times where I was at my computer, I maybe clicked the link every 30 minutes or so.
It literally takes just seconds, so I was collectively spending a few minutes per day looking up availability. Sure enough, four days before departure, the airline opened up exactly four first class award seats, so we booked them right away. How awesome!
Interestingly, no additional award seats ended up being made available, so this was a flight where the airline held back three first class seats (which I find is the most seats that the airline won’t open up as awards).
The flight ultimately had only one other passenger in first class. Man, that’s not a terribly profitable first class cabin for the airline, since the other passenger also presumably redeemed miles.
Bottom line
We managed to snag four first class award seats on a single Japan Airlines transpacific flight, which I thought was a pretty cool opportunity. I’ve only otherwise ever booked four first class award seats on a single long haul flight with Lufthansa, so it was fun to try this on another airline.
It required a lot of persistence, but ultimately nothing too crazy. It was a function of identifying the flights that had the most first class seats for sale, and then checking availability religiously. I continue to get huge value from American AAdvantage miles, and am so happy that we were able to all travel together in comfort, in an incredible (but dated) first class.
Great post.
I could use some advice. I have LAX-HND booked through BA for next October, 1 F and 1 J. How best to handle it if an additional F on the same flight becomes available.
1) Pay more through BA to change the ticket?
2) Book through AA for less, and then cancel the BA J ticket?
I'm concerned that if I do #2, I might wind up with losing the F booking...
Great post.
I could use some advice. I have LAX-HND booked through BA for next October, 1 F and 1 J. How best to handle it if an additional F on the same flight becomes available.
1) Pay more through BA to change the ticket?
2) Book through AA for less, and then cancel the BA J ticket?
I'm concerned that if I do #2, I might wind up with losing the F booking due to JAL catching it as a duplicate. If I'm correct, JAL needs to confirm the F booking, it doesn't ticket automatically. But I don't want to cancel the BA J ticket until I have the F ticket confirmed.
A similar situation - I have 2 J returning. If it's another day, easy, happy to extend the trip a few days. But if it opens on the flight I"m on, a similar issue.
Ben, how would you handle it?
For once I can one-up Ben. I got five F awards on a single flight in the summer of 2022, a few months before Japan reopened to tourists. Originally booked 2 on HND-JFK and 3 on NRT-JFK about 48 hours out, then was able to move everyone over to HND-JFK about 24 hours out.
Any hints about snagging F on ANA’s The Suite? Is it easier to book C and use points to upgrade? If going for an upgrade, is it still RT only?
Everyone's experience is different, of course. "YMMV" is one of the pillars of the game, along with "earn and burn".
But I have to say that myself and everyone I know who uses points for high-level redemptions (>6 cpm) have always found a way to make big itineraries/goals work with persistence, flexibility, early planning and patience. Maybe not 4 F seats on JL but certainly couples or families flying J or a mix of...
Everyone's experience is different, of course. "YMMV" is one of the pillars of the game, along with "earn and burn".
But I have to say that myself and everyone I know who uses points for high-level redemptions (>6 cpm) have always found a way to make big itineraries/goals work with persistence, flexibility, early planning and patience. Maybe not 4 F seats on JL but certainly couples or families flying J or a mix of parents in F, kids in J.
In short, reports of the demise of points usability (see: NYT recently) are premature. But it's probably better that it's the perception of the general public.
I love this post.
Persistence and patience definitly pay but many people believe someone use "magic bullets" and are looking for it.
What about new first on the 350? With 6 seats, how are they doing that, if at all?
I've seen a few flights with F5 A0.
Can one assume that if there is no A class inventory then awards won't be possible?
This is using AA miles.
@ Al -- It's a similar system, and I wrote about it here:
https://onemileatatime.com/insights/redeem-miles-japan-airlines-a350-first-business-class/
Of course with just six seats, snagging multiple award seats is significantly more difficult. I wouldn't assume that no "A" class means no first class award space with certainty, but more often than not, that will be true.
JAL is definitely more stingy with A350 routes vs 777 routes for last minute F and even J awards. For US routes, its quite common to see last minute F/J to/from SFO/ORD with 777 and much less so on DFW/JFK routes.
Enough time for British First Dining at SFO? I guess you need first class tickets with no Oneworld status…
@ Sel, D. -- Absolutely, it's nice how JL F passengers get access to that. I'll have a full review.
This is a great get, for sure. For those of you doubters out there, SFO and ORD are probably the JAL routes where awards are released the most, with JFK being the most difficult to book.
In the past, I have been able to book 3x JAL F awards (JFK-HND), but in my experience it comes in drips and drags — grab one seat, another becomes available, etc. The fact that 4 were available at once is phenomenal.
Ben that's so generous of you to take my wife and I with your family to Japan :)
@ R B -- Hah! :D
Well done. I was fortunate to bag JL F last year from JFK for 80k AA miles, though it wasn’t the new one. I was the only passenger in F, so they set the bed up in the seat next to me.
@ Hobbs -- Having an empty first class cabin is a pretty special experience, eh?
Someone posted that exact flight as available on award travel Reddit. The guy cancelled 4 F seats. Maybe you got that flight.
@ Evan -- I imagine that was another flight, since the flight I was looking at was showing "F7" up until I booked, meaning seven seats were available for sale.
If it was March 3, it’s the same. Just ironic.
@ Evan -- Hah, wasn't March 3, but close. :-)
How is this blogger able to get soo many miles soo fast?
When AA introduced LP and Simplemiles was introduced they had a promo for a charity donation - of 40 miles per dollar. And they had a promo with 6x to go along. so 240 miles per dollar donated. Ben spend $30,000 and got 7,000,000 AA miles. This got cut off - but AA honored those that snagged it. Hence Ben has 7M AA miles to spend. And I guess that is why he did not earn anything but Gold last year on AA.
@ Jacob -- I do have a lot of AA miles through the SimplyMiles deal there was some time back. However, generally speaking, I don't keep huge balances with programs, but am always earning and burning.
I just completed a trip with four JAL First Class reward flights for 2. Same strategy - booked J and when F opened changed. And for the returning flight last Thursday - there were 4 F seats that opened, since the flight was completely empty. Shortly after booking my 2, 2 remained but they were gone within an hour. Only 5 people out of 8 on the flight. After the 4 are gone, JAL doesn't...
I just completed a trip with four JAL First Class reward flights for 2. Same strategy - booked J and when F opened changed. And for the returning flight last Thursday - there were 4 F seats that opened, since the flight was completely empty. Shortly after booking my 2, 2 remained but they were gone within an hour. Only 5 people out of 8 on the flight. After the 4 are gone, JAL doesn't release anymore - so there were 3 empty seats. One my four flights - they all had empty seats out of the 8. From one to 3 empties.
Flights were: ORD-HND, HND-SYD, BKK-HND, HND-ORD - all JAL F for 2. Also had a QF J from SYD-BKK (only has J on the Finnair aircraft operated by QF). It is winter so flights are easier to get. Had to delay our flight from HND-ORD since I know I would miss the F seats since the seats would open while on the QF SYD-BKK, which doesn't have Wifi. Also - JL has fast wifi free for F passengers.
When checking in at HND - JL has a special F only check in room with private wood paneled security check point - very nice.
Right. Get that you had to be quite persistent, checking every 30 minutes when you were at your computer. Also understand the tools you used:
- American Airlines website (primary)
- Google Flights
- Seats.aero
- ExpertFlyer
How many days were you working on this? I know you booked four days ahead of your flight - just curious how many days were spent on this.
@ Nice catch! -- I started looking seriously a week out, figuring availability would open within a few days. And sure enough, that's what happened. Prior to that, I was looking much less consistently.
I came in here to tell the "yeah but you're a blogger" joke and after reading further down I see you were way ahead of me lol.
Kudos for the find, we all know the thrill (if you're lucky). Can you share how you have your friends reimburse you for the miles you presumably booked using your AA miles single-handedly? When booking for those outside of our immediate household we all fall into this trap. Curious what your strategy is.
"we all know the thrill (if you're lucky)"
Nice pun.
@ SAN77WSEA -- In this case, our friends also have American AAdvantage miles, so we were in contact, and they booked two seats exactly the same time we did.
"It makes one first class award seat available as soon as the schedule opens"
Yep, I can attest to this. I was that one person who snagged two one ways last October for my trip to Tokyo in September 2025, the moment availability opened up, I was on that seat like white on rice.
Ben, this is awesome! Question: I notice that AA and Qantas seem to have the most access to JAL F awards. For those of us that have a lot of miles in other programs (in my case, Alaska), is it true that other programs just don’t have access? I would love to book one of these as well, but just don’t have the ability to earn that many AA miles, and I find it frustrating that other partner programs don’t have access to the same availability.
@ Zach -- Most partner programs have access to the same space on Japan Airlines, though Alaska Mileage Plan is tricky. Not only does the program often not have availability close to departure, but it often has access to the actual availability minus one. So if there are only two first class award seats, only one will often be bookable through mileage Plan. Super frustrating, I know...