JAL will add Qatar Airways as JAL Mileage Bank partner on October 30 2013. Image by Aero Icarus.

As Qatar Airways (QR) is set to officially join oneworld on October 30 2013, JAL will inaugurate a frequent flyer program partnership with Qatar Airways on the same day as well. This means JAL Mileage Bank (JMB) members will soon be able to earn redeemable miles and FLY ON Points on eligible Qatar Airways' flights when they travel with eligible fares. Also, they will be able to redeem award tickets on QR coded flights operated by Qatar Airways as well.

Free Class J Upgrade on Select Okinawa Remote Island Routes. Image by Japan Airlines

JAL SKY SUITE won SKYTRAX's Best Business Class Airline Seat award. Image by Japan Airlines.

SKYTRAX announced the list of 2013 World Airline Awards winners at the Paris Air Show 2013 today. And unsurprisingly Japan Airlines' (JAL) new Business Class seat dubbed JAL SKY SUITE was named the "Best Business Class Airline Seat". This is the first time a Japanese carrier has won this award.

Up until now, you can make an international upgrade award reservation before you issue your ticket. Japan Airlines (JAL) will usually hold it for 5 days and cancel it if the lower class ticket hasn't been issued before the deadline. However, JAL will shorten the hold period to 3 days from September 2 2013.

Japan Airlines (JAL) has just announced a discounted award campaign on airberlin flights, which also include flights operated by airberlin's subsidiary NIKI. This campaign will last for a year, from January 21 2013 till January 20 2014. During the campaign period, awards can be exchanged with as little as 9,000 JAL Mileage Bank (JMB) miles.

JAL and Bangkok Airways codeshare flight network. Image from Japan Airlines

[Update: JAL and PG have issued a press release regarding this new JMB partnership and codeshare agreement] 

Japan Airlines (JAL) announces the new partnership with Bangkok Airways (PG). JAL Mileage Bank (JMB) members can now redeem miles on PG operated flights. But there are no words on mileage accumulation rate yet you will NOT be able to accrue mileage on PG flights. To celebrate the commemoration of the new partnership, JAL is launching a discount mileage campaign which JMB members can redeem a economy class roundtrip ticket on PG with as little as 5,000 miles!

JAL First Class Award is wide open for the next 11 months!

GaryD on FlyerTalk pointed out that the First Class award inventory on Japan Airlines (JAL) flights are extremely generous today. In fact, you can find a First Class award seats on JAL flights to the US on a lot of the dates in the next 11 months!

Special upgrade discount campaign on Europe and North America routes. Image from Japan Airlines

Japan Airlines (JAL) has just announced a rather amazing upgrade campaign for JAL Mileage Bank (JMB) members in the American and Europe/Middle East/Africa regions as part of the Thanks to 25 million JMB members! celebration. For a limited time, you can save up to 20,000 miles when upgrading from Economy to Business class on JAL flights between Japan and North America and Europe! However JAL is only running this campaign for a very limited time! Below are the details

Thanks to 25 Million JMB Members Promotion. Image from Japan Airlines

Japan Airlines (JAL) has announced that their frequent flyer program, JAL Mileage Bank (JMB), has reached the 25 million members milestone. To celebrate this amazing achievement, JAL has launched a series of campaign. The first 3 campaigns were announced today and more will be announced on October 25 2012 (JST).

A while back Japan Airlines (JAL) announced the award ticket priority flight operations. As long as there is a economy class seat for sale, award redemptions will be available on these flights. Today JAL has announced the priority flights for travel between October and December 2012.

Japan Airlines (JAL) has announced a JAL Mileage Bank (JMB) service improvement that will expand the number of Ryukyu Air Commuter (RAC) routes that are eligible for mileage accumulation and award redemption from July 1 2012.

A while back Japan Airlines (JAL) announced the award ticket priority flight operations. As long as there is a economy class seat for sale, award redemptions will be available on these flights. Today JAL has announced the priority flights for travel between July and September 2012.

JAL added more partners to online award redemption

Japan Airlines (JAL) has upgraded its JAL Mileage Bank (JMB) website to allow online award redemptions for more partner airlines. Effective immediately, the online partner award redemption is available for American Airlines (AA), Air France (AF), British Airways (BA), Cathay Pacific Airways (CX), and Qantas (QF). Just login to your JMB account and you should be able to see AA, AF, BA as the new options in the drop-down menu.

[Updated with English link of priority award flights and comments at the end] promised, Japan Airlines (JAL) has provided us yet another update on JAL Mileage Project 2012/JAL Mileage Bank (JMB) today. And as expected, this is a relatively small announcement targeted mainly to Japan region members (you could tell when there was no announcements coming soon on March 14 2012 on the English page right :P). The three JMB program enhancements are:


1. Award redemption priority on popular resort routes
2. Extra partners for non-flight award redemptions
3. WAON enhancement specific to JCB cardholders

[Update: Added business cabin configuration analysis] Japan Airlines (JAL) has just announced their plan of new full-bed business class seats the new FLY ON (aka elite) benefits for 2012 that they will implement to make up for the discontinuation of the upgrade points (UGPs). Below are the details

Until now, if you want to redeem a JAL international award ticket through the internet, you will have to do so at least 7 days before your departure date. After that, you won't be able to search for availability of your flight. JAL has now upgraded its website to allow award redemption up to 4 days before departure date. The cut-off time will be at noon instead of 23:59 though.

Enhanced JAL award calendar search

[Update: English version of the enhanced calendar search is finally available]

Japan Airlines (JAL) has just rolled out a new JAL Mileage Bank (JMB) award calendar search tool. Now you can search for awards in a calendar format for up to 330 days for international awards and 2 months for domestic awards! And it will display award availabilities on all flights from your airport! Before this enhancement, you could only search for international award using the calendar search features up to 180 days and 1 city at a time. Unfortunately, it is only available in Japanese right now. But even if you are only using the English version of JMB website, you also get an enhancing which allows you to use the calendar search for up to 330 days now :D. In case you are and adventurist and want to try out the Japanese version, below are the instructions for domestic and international calendar search.

For some people, it has always been a hassle to calculate for the exact FLY ON Points (FOPs) you will get when you plan for a mileage run with JAL Mileage Bank (JMB) as JAL did not have a FOP calculator on its website. I use a excel spreadsheet for my FOP calculations and sometimes the results could be off by 1 if it's a new route that I have never flown on before. But all these have changed! Finally JAL has published an official FOP calculator for BOTH Japan region and non-Japan region JMB members in BOTH Japanese and English! :D

[Update: Flights are now on sale. Configuration info added]


Japan Airlines (JAL) just sent out an advance notice of their extra Honolulu (HNL)-Tokyo Narita (NRT) flight schedules during year end holiday and other peak travel days. These flights will be available for sale and award redemption. JAL FLY ON members (aka elites) are given advanced noticed of this and exactly when the awards will be opened up. Below is the schedule of the extra flights.