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Your American Airlines Miles Just Got Easier to Use For Flights to Japan — Just in Time for the 2020 Olympics

  • Jason Stauffer

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    INSIDER SECRET: You can book Japan Airlines awards 330 days in advance, so you’ve still got time to earn the miles you need for a trip to the 2020 Olympics.

    It’s now a bit easier to use your American Airlines miles to get to Japan. Japan Airlines is a Oneworld alliance partner, so you can use American Airlines miles to book Japan Airlines award seats. But until today you weren’t able to do this online, you had to call in to make the reservation.

    For the average American Airlines member the change is good news. The downside is that because Japan Airlines award seats will be easier to find, there likely will be more people booking them. These awards probably will fill up much more quickly than before, especially with the 2020 Olympics just around the corner.

    Using your American Airlines miles for partner award flights to Japan is a great idea. (Photo by Guitar photographer/Shutterstock)

    American Airlines Miles to Japan

    Japan Airlines flies to/from the US from these cities:

    Japan Airlines releases its award seats 330 days in advance. So if you want to book award flights to Japan for the 2020 Olympics, (which start July 24, 2020) set a reminder to start looking for flight right around August 28, 2019 (depending on when you want to arrive).

    Round-trip award flights from the US to Japan on American Airlines Oneworld partner airlines (like Japan Airlines) cost:

    The Olympics are far enough away that you could have to time to open an American Airlines credit card and earn the bonus miles needed to book a flight 330 days in advance, but you’d have to be able to meet the minimum spending requirement within the first billing cycle. Here are the current bonus offers:

    The information for the Citi AAdvantage Platinum, CitiBusiness AAdvantage Platinum card, Barclays Aviator cards has been collected independently by Million Mile Secrets. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.

    You can also transfer Marriott points to American Airlines at a 3:1 ratio.

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    Editorial Note: We're the Million Mile Secrets team. And we're proud of our content, opinions and analysis, and of our reader's comments. These haven’t been reviewed, approved or endorsed by any of the airlines, hotels, or credit card issuers which we often write about. And that’s just how we like it! :)