Book NOW: awards available for SFO-NRT for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics

Japan Airlines has just opened the booking floodgates for their new SFO-NRT route which is scheduled to commence on March 29, 2020.  As usual, there's tons of award availability for all classes of service for the route, with as many as 4 award seats available in business class on many dates!  As the booking window opened this morning, some of the best flights for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics have been taken, but there is still plenty of availability for the surrounding dates as shown on JAL's partner American Airlines website:



AA now allows you to book and hold JAL awards for up to 5 days without a fee, so this would be a great opportunity if you were planning on going to Japan.  Other good booking avenues include the following:

  • Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan: 60k miles
  • British Airways Executive Club: 77,250 Avios + ~$117.90 fees

Outside of the Olympics, which will be held from July 22nd to August 9th, 2020, award availability is literally out of this world and unheard of . . . in a good way:



With Alaska Airlines, you also get a free stopover in both directions of travel.  So you could book SFO-NRT-Taipei, and then return Shanghai-NRT-SFO all for just 120k miles roundtrip.  Although you don't get a free stopover with AA, you could book SFO-NRT and fly onward to any destination in Japan or South Korea (e.g. SFO-NRT-ICN) for still just 60k miles each way provided that your layover at NRT is <24 hours.  Since NRT is a huge Oneworld hub, you could leverage the SFO-NRT to many destinations in Asia.


Quick thoughts

Securing premium class award availability from the U.S. to Japan is often a challenge, but JAL's new SFO-NRT presents an unparalleled award booking opportunity that won't last long!  If you've been fancying a trip to Japan or any of the Asian destinations with Oneworld, I would definitely take advantage of this wide open award space before it's gone.  JAL has one of the best soft products on the planet, and they use the B787-800 with their legendary Apex Suites in business class for the new SFO-NRT route:




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