JAL website now shows Oneworld award availability for all airlines

[Mattg]

The Japan Airlines website is sometimes used when searching for Oneworld award availability because it tends not to show the "phantom" award availability that is sometimes displayed on the Qantas (and other) websites. This can sometimes be an issue for CX availability, among other airlines.

The problem with the JAL website is that you can only search one date and (until now) one airline at a time. You can still only search day by day, but the website now has a "Oneworld Award tickets" search function. Using this method displays availability on all Oneworld airlines.



e.g. if I do a search for HKG-LHR flights, options show up on CX, BA, AY and QR (and some itineraries use a combination of these Oneworld airlines).

Another benefit of the JAL website is that you can easily see the number of award seats left on each flight.



You won't be able to get a quote for the taxes unless, presumably, you have enough miles in your account to book. Regardless of which itinerary I select, I get the following message on the next page...



Nonetheless, some might find this useful as another tool for finding Oneworld award availability.

 

[Himeno]

Is this for award flights available via any program or just oneworld flights bookable via JMB?

 

[Mattg]

Is this for award flights available via any program or just oneworld flights bookable via JMB?

If a Oneworld partner airline flight is bookable via Mileage Bank, it should be available with any other Oneworld program. The only exception would (possibly) be flights on JL metal.

 

[kermatu]

Thanks!

 

[egoode]

I’ve not seen it anywhere but I would love a tool that let you find reward seats between one start point and multiple destinations. I was once searching for reward seats when living in London for a trip to Australia and any of the major cities would have been fine for me to fly into as I had family and friends I wanted to catch up with in each of them. It would have been great to see after one search that there was availability in Adelaide which is the route I ended up going with. I also imagine it would be useful those going to Europe from Australia and may have multiple countries they are visiting and could amend their itinerary to suit the award availability.

 

[zjrobinson]

We use JMB quite regularly, will be interesting to see if this is an easier tool than the Qantas or BA search engine.

Thanks!

 

[Matt_01]

Thanks will save some time jumping between accounts.

 

[motef]

So I have found a couple of issues

- You cant search 361 days out. For example from today 08/04/2019 I can search on QF for 03/04/2020 (361days) but on JAL website I can only search up to 02/04/2020

- Some routes on QR are not being presented. (I haven't checked others) For example looking at Syd - Doh in Y for 02/04/2020 on QF shows award availability on QR907 and QR909 from Syd to Doh direct as well as options with CX for Syd- Hkg -Doh and JAL/QR Syd - Nrt - Doh. Where the JAL website only shows the Syd-Nrt-Doh

 

[Danger]

So I have found a couple of issues

- You cant search 361 days out. For example from today 08/04/2019 I can search on QF for 03/04/2020 (361days) but on JAL website I can only search up to 02/04/2020

- Some routes on QR are not being presented. (I haven't checked others) For example looking at Syd - Doh in Y for 02/04/2020 on QF shows award availability on QR907 and QR909 from Syd to Doh direct as well as options with CX for Syd- Hkg -Doh and JAL/QR Syd - Nrt - Doh. Where the JAL website only shows the Syd-Nrt-Doh

The discrepancy may be that QR has not provided the same award inventory to JL as it has to QF.

 

[motef]

Im not sure why though the CX availability is not showing on JAL though.

Also just tested with Sri Lankan.

Can search 361 days out on QF, can only do 360 days on JAL for Sri Lankan.

Checked SIN - MLE via CMB. On QF 9 options showing including QR, CX and UL on JAL only 4 routes showing with no CX and half the UL routes

​

 

[drron]

I use the JMB site to find JL awards mainly.If they showed up AA could always see them.
Unfortunately JAL has begun releasing awards 360 days out-hence why you can't see them at 361 days.
For me this is a bad thing as I used AA for JAL awards and basically they released them as AA opened up their awards.I will probably now find little availability when it comes time to use AA.

 

[mandja]

Thanks Matt. Really helpful

So to be clear the JMB tool is just- that a search tool useful for JAL flights on their metal with their JMB points. It is also useful to search for OW flights e.g. QA using QFF points but the latter only bookable on QFF (unless you have JMB points) - have I got that right?

 

[fn0]

If a Oneworld partner airline flight is bookable via Mileage Bank, it should be available with any other Oneworld program. The only exception would (possibly) be flights on JL metal.

Will JMB show OneWorld award seat availability if you don't have the JMB miles to book one? I ask this because I have no JMB miles but have lots of Alaska Airlines miles good for Cathay Pacific and Qantas, among others. Alaska has no online access to Cathay Pacific awards. I will sign up for JMB if it will let me see award availability on Cathay Pacific and Qantas and improve my chances of getting transpacific business or first class flights.

 

[drron]

Yes.I have never had a JMB mile but will still show me 2 F awards to or from the USA.

PS that is on JAL over the last 6-8 years.

 

[Mattg]

Thanks Matt. Really helpful

So to be clear the JMB tool is just- that a search tool useful for JAL flights on their metal with their JMB points. It is also useful to search for OW flights e.g. QA using QFF points but the latter only bookable on QFF (unless you have JMB points) - have I got that right?

There are three types of searches you can do on the JAL website for award availability - JAL flights (only), partner airlines (one at a time) or Oneworld awards (showing all Oneworld airlines in one search).

If you have only Qantas points, the JAL website is useful purely for finding award seat availability. Of course anything showing on the JAL website can also be booked with JMB points, if you have them.

Will JMB show OneWorld award seat availability if you don't have the JMB miles to book one? I ask this because I have no JMB miles but have lots of Alaska Airlines miles good for Cathay Pacific and Qantas, among others. Alaska has no online access to Cathay Pacific awards. I will sign up for JMB if it will let me see award availability on Cathay Pacific and Qantas and improve my chances of getting transpacific business or first class flights.

Yes, you can still search for availability. You just won't be able to proceed beyond that page and you won't get a quote (not that you need one anyway) if you don't have sufficient JMB points in your account.

Note that Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan has access to fewer award seats on Cathay Pacific and Qantas than Oneworld airlines do. So JAL is not a reliable indicator of Alaskan award availability.

 

[KVS]

For the benefit of KVS Tool users:

We have now also added support for the OneWorld search option to the [Awards/JL-OneWorld] Method in KVS Tool V9.2.9

 

[big_RED]

If you have only Qantas points, the JAL website is useful purely for finding award seat availability. Of course anything showing on the JAL website can also be booked with JMB points, if you have them.

SO just to confirm - the JAL OneWorld search is really beneficial is you want to see availability that you can't see on Qantas (if you only have QFF points to use). So therefore the process is:
1. Search Qantas - cannot find your reward seats
2. Search JAL - and can find QANTAS or another airlines reward seats that didn't show on the QF search
3. Call Qantas and explain that you've found award seats which you want to use your QFF points for, and make the booking over the phone

Is that correct?

 

[Mattg]

The JAL website won't necessarily show award seats that don't appear on the Qantas website. After all, the QF website now displays seats on all partner airlines. But it's better at searching for more complex combinations of flights that require connections. Plugging the same series of flights into the QF multi-city tool should result in those flights also being visible.

The other use of the JAL website is to double-check that what you're seeing on the Qantas website is not phantom award availability. E.g. some of the CX award seats shown by Qantas cannot actually be booked. The JL website also does not show these.

 

[big_RED]

But it's better at searching for more complex combinations of flights that require connections.

So if we do find award itineraries on JAL that aren't on Qantas we'd therefore call Qantas to make the booking and ask for the booking fee to be waived correct?

If you have no status with JAL it sounds like this doesn't matter and they show you all available seats. Whereas Qantas shows more seats to the higher status members in the search - is this also a benefit?

 

[Danger]

So if we do find award itineraries on JAL that aren't on Qantas we'd therefore call Qantas to make the booking and ask for the booking fee to be waived correct?

If you have no status with JAL it sounds like this doesn't matter and they show you all available seats. Whereas Qantas shows more seats to the higher status members in the search - is this also a benefit?

While it's certainly possible that an award is availability that is not showing on the QF website, it's also entirely possible (and possibly more likely) that the partner has not made the award available. In your case, just because JL shows a seat (on, say, QR), it may well be that the other airline (QR in this case) has not made the seat available for redemption through QF. Availability is no uniform across oneworld.