In the previous post, Japan Airlines Miles Guide (1) – A Powerful oneworld Award Search Tool, we introduced the powerful award-search function on the JAL website. Today, we’ll talk about JAL’s redemption options. Since JAL has very few transferable-points partners (only SPG transfers in), JAL miles are not easy to earn. So today we’ll focus on one of the more practical redemption options that requires relatively fewer miles and offers solid value: single-partner award redemptions. 
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How do you check how many JAL miles an award flight requires?
JAL award redemptions are a bit complicated and fall into three categories:
- Redeeming for JAL-operated flights: click here for the award chart.
- Redeeming for a single partner airline: eligible airlines include not only oneworld partners, but also JAL partners such as Air France AF, Emirates EK, China Eastern MU, and Bangkok Airways PG. Click here for the award chart. You can redeem for only one airline at a time; mixed-carrier awards are not allowed.
- Redeeming for itineraries that include two or more oneworld partner airlines: click here for the award chart.
Today we’re focusing on the second type: single-partner award redemptions.
What’s great about single-partner award redemptions?
Here is the award chart:
We’ve previously talked about two different types of award charts. The first type, represented by UA mile redemptions, determines the mileage cost based on the regions of your departure and arrival cities, regardless of the routing. The second type, like BA mile redemptions, prices awards based on the distance of each segment and then adds them together. JAL’s award chart is different from both of these: the miles required are based on the total flight distance of the entire itinerary.
So how is that different from redeeming with BA ? Let’s look at an example. Suppose I want to book a round-trip AA economy ticket from San Francisco to San Diego via Los Angeles, as shown below:
If you redeem with BA, there are four flight segments here, and each segment costs 4500 Avios, so the total comes to 4500*4=18,000 Avios.
If you redeem with JAL miles, the total distance is 893 Miles, which falls into the 1-1000 band. According to the chart above, that requires 15,000 JL miles. As you can see, in this example, JL requires fewer miles than BA, which is often considered a short-haul sweet spot program.
That’s why we often say BA miles are best for people who live at AA/US hub airports ( that is, HUBs; for an introduction to HUBs, see this article ) because you’ll have many nonstop flight options, which makes BA redemptions very attractive. These hub airports include: Dallas（DFW）, Philadelphia（PHL）, Charlotte（CLT）, Los Angeles（LAX）, Miami（MIA）, Washington（DCA）, Phoenix（PHX）, New York（JFK/LGA）, and Chicago（ORD）.
But for those of you who live outside these cities, JAL JL miles may be a better fit, because you won’t have to pay too many extra miles just for short connecting flights.
There is currently a discount on redeeming US Airways flights
If you want to redeem US Airways flights before the airline disappears, now is an especially good time to use JL miles, because there is a discount on US flight redemptions booked with JL miles through September 30. For details, click here.
For itineraries within 1-1000, you only need 10,000 JAL miles! Starting from New York, fly to Boston for lobster, then to DC to see the White House, then to Philadelphia for the art museum, and finally back to New York. No need to worry about big-city traffic, expensive parking, or hard-to-find parking spots. The total flight distance is 798 Miles, and you can do the whole trip for just 10,000 JAL miles.
So how do you earn JL miles? If you don’t fly often, consider transferring points from credit cards. Right now, the welcome bonus on the SPG credit card has been temporarily increased to 30,000. 30,000 SPG points can be converted into 35,000 JL miles, which is more than enough for three short trips like this. This is also the easiest way to get JL miles. Remember to apply by September 14.
JL miles are also great for “hop-around” trips
In the regular JL award chart（not the US Promo chart）, we found another highlight: itineraries with a total distance of 1001-2000 Miles require 20,000 JL miles, but if you double that flight distance, itineraries within 2001-4000 Miles require only 21,000 JL miles, while 4001-6000 Miles jumps all the way to 37,000 miles! What does that tell us? Exactly this: the sweet spot on this chart is the 2001-4000 Miles band for total flight distance!（Of course, 8001-10000 is also a very nice redemption band, but at that distance there are other options with even better value.）
So what can you do with 4000 Miles? Here’s one example: 21,000 JL miles can get you an itinerary like this（New York - Miami - Houston - Chicago - New York）, essentially looping around half the United States, with a stopover in each city:
If you use that US promotion, 2001-4000 Miles requires only 16,000 JAL miles, and the welcome bonus from the AMEX SPG credit card is enough to redeem two of these hop-around tickets!
Things to keep in mind for JL award redemptions
- Single-partner awards must be ticketed by phone. For example, if you want to redeem for AA/US tickets, first search for award space on the AA and BA websites, then call JAL to issue the ticket.
- Open-jaw itineraries are allowed, but the distance between the open-jaw points counts toward the total flight distance.
- You can have up to three stopovers, including the destination.
- Fuel surcharges apply, but not on AA/US redemptions.