冰吨吨 used 60,000 Alaska miles to book a Japan Airlines business-class award on the nonstop from Tokyo Narita to Vancouver. The flight is close to nine hours, on a Boeing 767 with 24 lie-flat business seats and 175 economy seats.

Blog post: Alaska Airlines mileage programme Alaska Mileage Plan intro – latest for 2024
Because Alaska miles have a sweet spot on JAL business class (see the article above), redeeming AS for JL is a regular move.

This write-up is for readers who have already ticketed a JL award with AS miles and cannot figure out seat selection.

Why seat selection is hard

In the Alaska account you can see that the ticket has been issued, with both an AS and a JL confirmation code, plus an e-ticket number.

If you click Seat Manage to pick a seat in advance, you get the text circled in blue below: you cannot do it yourself online; you have to contact customer service.

If you still try, search for Japan Airlines → manage booking, enter the details, and you still get an error: the reservation cannot be found.

Seat-selection steps that actually work

You cannot find the booking in JAL’s system because JAL splits domestic and international sites. Switch the JAL website to an international city: Shanghai, Beijing, Vancouver, and the like.

1. Change the city and language

Here 冰吨吨 set the JAL site city to Shanghai and the language to Chinese.

2. Click Manage booking in the screenshot above, enter the details, and view the reservation

3. See the booking on JAL

From here you can choose seats, meals, and so on

4. Seat selected

Other notes

Switching to Vancouver and English also works normally

For the exact seat map and layout, this site is useful. The still-open window seats in row 4 have decent privacy.

After Alaska’s award-chart change in early 2024, redeeming JAL is still a regular move, so knowing how to choose JAL seats is a required skill.

  • Shanghai–Tokyo business class is only 15,000 miles
  • Vancouver–Tokyo business class is still 60,000 miles

Keywords: Alaska Airlines, Alaska miles for Japan Airlines, Japan Airlines seat selection, Japan Airlines business class