JAL domestic bookings via JAL website - how far in advance can you book?

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Max Samuels

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I am trying to book some flights in Japan for January 2020, and via the JAL website I get an error message saying:

"Sorry, we do not offer flights on your requested route and/or date.
When using Transit Fare 7 or Transit Fare 28, individual flight portions cannot be changed.
Please delete the itinerary changes, and select seat availability again".

Whatever that means....

I have experimented with moving the booking date in closer and do get inventory within about the 3 month mark.... now here is the issue: Using Expedia or a travel agent, I can book tickets in JAL in January, but the prices are staggering - $500 ow HND-CTS in Y, for example. However if I look at the JAL website for within 3 months, I can get First Class for that amount, and Y for about $150!

I have experienced something like this before but want to see if anyone has a definitive answer: does JAL have a whole bunch of different inventory that is not visible/available to travel agents? i know that you cannot buy tickets on Japan Rail more than 3 months out - maybe they enforce this also for their domestic air travel?

So confuse.
 
So I have trawled the internet for days.... and have found NOTHING on any travel/airline forum..... so was forced to go into the Japanese version of the website myself and look at the fine print in Japanese.... and now I can answer the question for everyone!!

Basically it is totally confusing with all sorts of fares for elderly, disabled, and even JAL shareholders!

But for the rest of us, there are a few options...

1) a travel agent (or expedia) can book a ticket for you within the normal 360-ish day window but looks like you will be paying close to full Y for anything I have seen...
2) use the JAL website, but be aware of the following:

75 days advance seems to the earliest you can buy online....
Discount economy has 4 advance purchase fare "categories", and within that different fare buckets: 75 days, 55 days, 45 days, 28 days. The cheapest HND-CTS is a 75 day advance purchase for 7,200 yen (pretty cheap!), but can be as high as 19,700 yen ( still 75 day advance though).

First class doesn't even seem to go on sale until 2 months out - and then it has various discount levels too.

If you can grab a discount F for 40,000 Yen one way that's not too bad (HND-CTS) and quite a few SCs come your way too!
 
Jeez, the JAL website and their emails are confusing enough without adding all that to the mix. I got several emails telling me my flight from NAR-MEL was a day before my flight LHR-HND, which was not true, they just hadn't added the _+1 to the dates. But I had to (with great trepidation) ring their customer service line, who were great, for reassurance.
 
Jeez, the JAL website and their emails are confusing enough without adding all that to the mix. I got several emails telling me my flight from NAR-MEL was a day before my flight LHR-HND, which was not true, they just hadn't added the _+1 to the dates. But I had to (with great trepidation) ring their customer service line, who were great, for reassurance.
Yeah it is quite staggering..... Japan, who excel at many, many things, fall down in the most unexpected of places. JAL, for example. One of the world's largest airlines has the worst reservation system (as we all experience). It is almost childlike in its simplicity.
 
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So basically JAL is becoming a normal airline! Come September 10th 2019 you can buy tickets 330 day in advance (not quite a year but still...)
OMG it actually works!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The JAL website now has full inventory almost a year in advance - much easier to use website - SO MUCH EASIER!! but.... look on Expedia.com, and the only thing they offer are full Y ($600 ow HND-CTS), but the JAL website has the same flight for $150.....

And they have also aligned their reward seats to this new miracle - reward seats are available on almost every flight in January/February.... it's literally a xmas miracle
 
Free return domestic flights:
 
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