Over the past few months, Japan Airlines has repeatedly dumped large numbers of married-segment awards between Japan and the US. You can book them with American Airlines miles and Alaska Airlines miles. Even better, the Japan domestic leg is easy to change onto a China–Japan flight, so the Japan–US married-segment award instantly becomes a JAL-operated China–Japan–US itinerary. It is very workable, so this post records the steps.
Alaska miles are easier for Canadian readers to get, so this post uses the Alaska account as the detailed example.
1️⃣ Japan–US married-segment awards
Search Tokyo–Los Angeles or Osaka–Los Angeles directly and you will not see Japan Airlines business-class awards. If you start from another city in Japan, such as Sapporo (CTS) to Los Angeles in the screenshot below, the award appears. That is a married-segment award.
For cities in Japan you can try CTS, FUK, NGO, MYJ, and others; the space you see may differ.
I used AS miles to book the Sapporo–Osaka–Los Angeles itinerary in the screenshot below
2️⃣ Changing the married-segment award
In the AS account: Trips → Change reservation
3️⃣ Choose the Japan domestic leg to change
Choose Change, not Cancel. On the Japan domestic leg, manually replace Sapporo with Pudong
4️⃣ The new award: Shanghai–Osaka–Los Angeles
The premise is that I had already found JAL-operated award space from Shanghai to Osaka in the AS system, with usable times
The system shows the new itinerary and any tax difference. Choose Select
5️⃣ The new ticket shows up in the account
The change went through. For seat selection, there is a separate post on how to choose seats and meals on JL awards
Tips: How to Choose Seats on Japan Airlines Awards Booked with Alaska Miles? AS JL Choose Seat
Tokyo–US
There is more space from Tokyo to the US. Use the same steps when you book
