Air miles

[Wales4rugbyWC23]

Despite having a JAL air miles credit card for the last 10 years, I have never actually used any of them for a flight. I have actually had to cash them in at AEON because of the expiry date. However, over the last couple of years (thanks to Covid) I have built up quite a bank of air miles. Is it possible with the JAL air miles to pay for two family members to use them for a flight?

[beanhead]

Yes.
JAL return to London used to be about 55,000 miles, if I remember rightly.

One challenge is that the airlines now split your fee into:

air fare
taxes
surcharges - fuel etc

The miles can only cover the air fare part, so you are still paying for the rest. I used some a while back and it was 50,000 per person in these assorted 'extras'. It is probably more now.
So your 'free' flights may only be half-price at the end of the day.

PLUS, they only have a few award seats on each flight, so it would be tough to get 4 people on one flight.

In my experience, air miles for JAL and ANA are best used for domestic flights.

The other thing to consider with JAL is turning your air miles into JAL coins. These function just like cash, so they will make your total outlay cheaper.

[Wales4rugbyWC23]

Yes.
JAL return to London used to be about 55,000 miles, if I remember rightly.

One challenge is that the airlines now split your fee into:

air fare
taxes
surcharges - fuel etc

The miles can only cover the air fare part, so you are still paying for the rest. I used some a while back and it was 50,000 per person in these assorted 'extras'. It is probably more now.
So your 'free' flights may only be half-price at the end of the day.

PLUS, they only have a few award seats on each flight, so it would be tough to get 4 people on one flight.

In my experience, air miles for JAL and ANA are best used for domestic flights.

The other thing to consider with JAL is turning your air miles into JAL coins. These function just like cash, so they will make your total outlay cheaper.

The JAL coins sound promising, any discount on long haul flight for a family of four is appreciated.

I went back at Christmas to the UK, and JAL gave me an additional 12,000 air miles.

[RetireJapan]

In my opinion air miles are best used for short flights that would be expensive to buy, or premium seats. If you can find an airline in the alliance that doesn't have a fuel surcharge on award flights that can help. You can also use JAL miles to book seats on One World airlines like Finn Air, British Airways, American Airways, etc.

Right now with fewer flights airlines are not really releasing award seats because they would rather sell them at the current high prices.

[AreTheyTheLemmings?]

My system is to pay for, and earn miles on, flights when I travel alone, and use those miles to upgrade when traveling with Mrs. Lemmings.

[northSaver]

I used my JAL miles to fly from Sapporo to Manchester and back with Qatar Airlines this winter, mainly because the surcharge was only 30,000 yen. The JAL flights were about 90,000 yen surcharge at the time, and have now increased to about 120,000 yen. The catch? It cost 90,000 miles per person. It was quite a pleasant journey though, and not much longer than the usual routes now that everyone is avoiding Russian airspace.

[TJKansai]

International JAL business and first class give you a pretty good bang for your mile.

This won't help you, but JAL award flights can be had for a reasonable amount via American or Alaska. Taxes from the US airlines are always really cheap, under $50 Japan to USA, and around $10 USA to Japan.

[tokyojoe]

I have used air miles a few times for flights with various airlines (Cathay, JAL, Korean Air).
As has been pointed out you still have to pay (using cash) for the taxes and carrier imposed
surcharge, so you will have to compare all these things when looking for the best deal
(i.e. some airlines will need more miles but their surcharge will be lower etc.).
Most 'pro' airmiles users use them to buy business class flights since the tax + surcharge
will be the same as for economy, there is just a higher miles requirement (this yields the greatest
discount compared to buying with cash). I am usually trying to subsidise family travel, however,
so I have only used airmiles to buy economy tickets.

To give you a rough idea, I used miles to buy a return flight to the UK this summer
going on Korean Air and returning using Cathay Pacific . The cash price
for a return with either company was around 17 man yen. I paid 9 man yen cash
to cover the taxes and surcharge and used 60,000 ~ 70000 miles in total taken from
two different systems.

Thus I saved ~8 man yen by using the miles. Note that the cheapest flight I
could have purchased (which would not be from either of these two airlines)
I found for 12 man yen, so you can argue instead that I saved 3 man yen in cash,
which is just about okay. The discount for business class would, as I say, be much
higher, but would require maybe 100,000 miles (?).

There are various tricks - for example I think it is illegal to charge a surcharge on flights
leaving Hong Hong so it can sometiems be useful to route through there, ...
I guess googling may throw a few more up.
Hope this helps.