JAL announced BA joint business details with reciprocal frequent flyer program benefits

As we know, Japan Airlines (JAL) and British Airways (BA) have received approval from authorities and will start their joint business from October 1 2012. JAL has just announced the details of the joint business and more importantly the enhanced JAL Mileage Bank (JMB) benefits that comes with the new joint business. Basically, the agreement is very similar to the one we saw with American Airlines (AA) with comes with elite flight bonus and enhanced accumulation rates. Below are the details.

Mile-Up Bonus on BA flights from October 1 2012

JAL/AA flights

JGC Diamond/JMB Diamond: 125%

JGC Premier/JGC Sapphire/JMB Sapphire: 100%

JGC Crystal/JMB Crystal: 50%

JGC with certain JAL CARDs: 35%

Note that Diamond members only earn 100% on BA flights and JMB Crystal members who are not JGC members will earn 25% instead of 50%. This probably has to do with BA's Gold and Bronze members only earn 100% and 25% bonus miles on their flights respectively.

New Mileage Accumulation Charts

JAL will be changing the accumulation rates on BA flights. Currently the most of the discounted economy booking classes on BA will only earn you 25% JMB miles. After the change, they will at least earn 50% JMB miles and some will even be bumped up to the 70% bucket. However, the E class rate will eventually be lowered from the current 100% to 70%.

Given the short notice of the changes, JAL will be implementing the changes in two stages. All the improved earning rates will be effective from October 1 2012 while the E class downgrade will happen on January 1 2013 (so nice of them :D). Discounted business class booking class I will also be bumped up from the current 100% to 125%. Below are the accumulation rates

Current

First Class

F, A - 150%

Business Class

J, C, D, R* - 125%

I - 100%

Economy Class

W, Y, E - 100%

T, B, H - 70%

K, L, M, G, N, O, Q, S, V - 25%

Effective October 1 2012

First Class

F, A - 150%

Business Class

J, C, D, R, I* - 125%

Economy Class

W, Y, E - 100%

T, B, H, K, L, M, V, S - 70%

N, Q, O, G - 25%

Effective January 1 2013

First Class

F, A - 150%

Business Class

J, C, D, R, I* - 125%

Economy Class

W, Y - 100%

E, T, B, H, K, L, M, V, S - 70%

N, Q, O, G - 25%

* J, C, D, R will earn 100% on UK domestic flights.

For more details on the enhanced reciprocal JMB benefits, you can refer to JAL website (Japanese, English)

Joint Business Details

As announced earlier, JAL and BA will be adding their Tokyo - London flights to their codesharing agreement. Under the new joint business, they will be offering joint fares, coordinating schedule and sharing profits on routes covered under the joint business agreement as well. These routes include

JAL Flights

Tokyo Narita - London Heathrow (Daily)

Tokyo Narita - Paris (Daily)

Tokyo Haneda - Paris (Daily)

Tokyo Narita - Frankfurt (Daily)

BA Flights

Tokyo Narita - London Heathrow (Daily)

Tokyo Haneda - London Heathrow (5 weekly)

JAL codeshare network operated by BA from London (Source: JAL Press Release)

BA codeshare network operated by JAL from Tokyo (Source: JAL Press Release)

The new joint business will also improve the connectivity of JAL and BA's flights at their respective hub cities. JAL will be adding new codeshare destinations of Belfast, Helsinki, Frankfurt, and Gothenburg operated by BA, while BA will be codesharing on JAL flights to new destinations that include Osaka Kansai, Okayama, Hiroshima, Izumo, Nagasaki, Kagoshima and Okinawa. Future codesharing enhancements have been planned in the future and will be announced when it is ready.

For more details, you can refer to JAL Press Release (Japanese, English). JAL also have created a special page for this new JBA (interesting that they call it JBV with AA) but it is in Japanese only.