Last updated: 2 September 2026. Fares and rules come from JAL’s own site and from the Promotion fare table filed with Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism on 1 September 2026 (release no. 20260901).

The basics: who can buy, when, and for which dates

Japan Airlines runs periodic domestic flash sales — taimu seeru (タイムセール) in Japanese. What actually goes on sale is a fare class called Promotion: not a permanent fare, but a limited allocation of seats on specific flights during a specific travel window, sold on specific days only.

Weekdays and weekends are priced separately

The official filing is split into two tables — one for weekdays, one for weekends and public holidays — and the same route can cost different amounts in each (Tokyo–Fukuoka is ¥12,210 on weekdays, ¥12,540 at weekends). The dates are named explicitly:

In other words, 21–24 December all count as weekdays. Those four days are the run-up to Christmas at weekday prices, which makes them the best-value slice of this sale. December has only three weekends inside the window — the 5th–6th, 12th–13th and 19th–20th — so those are where the popular routes will sell out first.

Every route and fare (all 104)

Below are all 104 routes from the two official tables, merged. Every figure is one way, tax included, Economy, and the Passenger Facility Charge is extra. A dash means there is no fare set for that category.

From Tokyo38 routes

From Sapporo (New Chitose)10 routes

From Nagoya (Chubu)2 routes

From Osaka24 routes

From Fukuoka11 routes

From Okinawa (Naha)9 routes

Other sectors10 routes

Source: the Promotion fare table JAL filed with Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism on 1 September 2026 (release no. 20260901, fare period 1 Nov – 24 Dec 2026). Data retrieved 2 September 2026. Fares and eligible flights can change or be withdrawn without notice — check the seat-availability search on JAL’s site before you book.

Where the real bargains are

Sort all 104 routes by price and a pattern appears: the genuinely cheap seats are on island and short-haul routes, not on the trunk routes the headlines are about.

Just the trunk routes (from Tokyo)

Tokyo–Sapporo ¥11,000, Tokyo–Osaka ¥9,460, Tokyo–Fukuoka ¥12,210 (¥12,540 at weekends), Tokyo–Okinawa (Naha) ¥11,440, Tokyo–Ishigaki ¥14,080. All one way, tax included, Economy. These five are also where demand concentrates, so they go first.

What to do before midnight on 8 September

Flash sales are won before they start. If you are still searching for flights at 0:01, or you discover then that your card has never been through 3-D Secure, you have already lost. Work through these five in order.

1. Before 7 September: get a JMB number for everyone travelling. The presale needs a nine-digit JAL Mileage Bank number for every passenger. Membership costs nothing to join and nothing per year, and the number is issued on screen as soon as you apply online. JMB stopped issuing physical cards on 4 August 2025, so the number lives in the JAL app.
2. Log in early and save passenger details and your card. Every field you have to type at 0:00 is a risk. Store the romanised name, date of birth, contact details and the payment card in your account in advance.
3. Check that your credit card is enrolled in 3-D Secure. JAL’s checkout requires 3-D Secure 2.0 authentication, and a card that has never been enrolled simply errors out. Repeated wrong passwords or one-time codes can also get the card temporarily locked by the issuer — some take more than 24 hours to release it. Have a second card ready.
4. Decide your first, second and third choice of route, date and flight. Weekday and weekend fares differ, and so do the eligible flights; not every departure on a route has sale seats. Flights with no fare set also show as “sold out” in the seat search, so a list of alternatives beats re-searching.
5. Join the virtual waiting room around 23:30 on 8 September. The sale opens at 0:00, but JAL starts routing visitors into a waiting room roughly 30 minutes beforehand. Once you have a booking, pay the same day — bookings that pass the deadline are cancelled without notice — and remember that on the presale day new bookings stop at 23:29.

The virtual waiting room

To stop the 0:00 rush from taking the site down, JAL holds visitors in a “virtual waiting room” (仮想待合室) from about 30 minutes before the sale opens until the start time. Once the crowd clears, the screen stops appearing.

Also worth knowing: sale seats end when they sell out, and there is no waitlist. Popular routes at popular times can disappear within minutes — but off-peak departures and midweek flights often survive into the general sale the next day.

The fare rules that catch people out

The Promotion fare is the most restricted fare JAL sells on domestic routes. Read this part before you press buy.

What you don’t lose

The restrictions are on the ticket, not on the service. JAL domestic still gives you 20kg of checked baggage free, with no limit on the number of pieces (up to 50 × 60 × 120cm total), and seat selection is free at the time of booking. That is a fundamentally different cost structure from a low-cost carrier, where bags, seats and changes are all extra — factor it in when you compare.

Child (under 12, occupying a seat), disability and family-care discounts also apply on top of this fare, at roughly 25%, 20% and 10% respectively.

What you pay on top of the fare

The fares above exclude the Passenger Facility Charge (PFC), the levy the airport terminal companies collect. It is added at purchase, and it applies at both ends if both airports are on the list — so a single one-way trip usually costs a few hundred yen more than the headline number.

Airports not on this list — Memanbetsu, Obihiro, Ishigaki and Miyako among them — do not charge it. Haneda is ¥580 for tickets bought and flown on or after 1 September 2026. New Chitose rises to ¥530 for tickets bought on or after 25 October 2026, so this sale (bought 8–9 September) still pays ¥370. The charge is refunded in full if you cancel. Figures retrieved 2 September 2026.

What you actually pay, PFC included (one way, adult)

Double those for a return trip: Tokyo–Sapporo works out at roughly ¥23,900 all in, which is a genuinely good number for a December Hokkaido run.

Squeezing out a little more

The fare itself is fixed. What you can choose is which door you walk through to reach jal.co.jp: click through a Japanese cashback site (point site) first and part of the ticket price comes back to you afterwards. It does not interact with the sale conditions at all.

Cashback on “JAL domestic tickets” (as of 2 September 2026)

On an ¥11,000 ticket that is 110 points via Rebates against ¥100 via Moppy — close, but the percentage deal pulls ahead on expensive tickets while the flat ones win on a ¥5,000 island hop. Comparing “same offer, different rate per site” is exactly what Pointnavi, which I run, is for; if the comparison says someone else pays more, use them. New to Japanese cashback sites? Start with the beginner’s guide to point sites and how to use Pointnavi.

If you have not signed up yet, this is a good ticket to start with

Most cashback sites make their sign-up bonus conditional on spending a certain amount within a certain window after registering — and an airline ticket clears that threshold comfortably. Rakuten Rebates is the neatest fit: it has no referral code, so you must register through a referral link, and the bonus combines a referral portion with a first-purchase portion (the eligible shops, minimum spend and deadline are whatever the official campaign page says). Full conditions for each: Rakuten Rebates referral guide, Moppy invitation code guide, Hapitas invitation code guide.

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📖 Read Guide

Moppy Japan's largest point site! Get 2,000pts for signing up

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Hapitas Up to 2,300pt on sign-up + conditions (2,000pt on non-iOS)

How it compares with the alternatives

A flash sale is not automatically the right answer. Its weaknesses are specific: you cannot change the booking, you might not get a seat at all, and the dates are locked to 1–24 December. Two minutes with the alternatives is worth it.

Put simply: dates fixed and you want cheap → the sale; plans might move → Special Saver or shareholder vouchers; 25 or under → check JAL Card Sky Mate from ¥6,930 first. For voucher pricing and the monthly roundup, see the shareholder perks summary.

ANA runs the same kind of domestic flash sale and prices it closely — the last round had Naha–Ishigaki at ¥5,720 and Haneda–Itami at ¥9,130 — on different dates and a different route map, so the ANA domestic flash sale is worth checking alongside. On rails, JR East’s Toku-da-ne Special 28 (half-price Shinkansen) covers a similar window.

Frequently asked questions

Q. Can I buy on 8 September if I’m not a JMB member?

No. 8 September is the members’ presale, and it needs a nine-digit JMB number for every passenger on the booking — one person without a membership blocks the whole reservation. If you would rather not join, you wait for the general sale on 9 September, by which point popular flights may already be gone.

Q. Is there still time to join JAL Mileage Bank?

Yes. There is no joining fee and no annual fee, and applying on the JAL website or in the JAL app shows your nine-digit number straight away — you do not wait for a card in the post. (JMB stopped issuing and reissuing physical cards on 4 August 2025; the number lives in the app.) Sign up any travel companions before 7 September.

Q. Can I change a sale ticket, and what does cancelling cost?

You cannot change it — not even to another flight with empty seats on the day of travel. Cancellations must be made at least 20 minutes before departure, and the charge is about 5% of the pre-tax fare from purchase until 55 days before departure, about 50% from 54 days out, and 100% after departure. Buying on 8–9 September for an early-December flight, that means cancelling before early October costs only about 5%.

Q. Do I still earn miles?

Yes, but at 50% in Economy. A same-day upgrade earns 60% in Class J and 100% in First Class. For comparison, the shareholder-discount fare earns 75% in Economy and Flex earns 100%. If miles are part of how you value a ticket, discount this fare accordingly.

Q. Can I book Class J or First Class?

No — this Promotion fare is set for Economy only. You can, however, upgrade at the airport on the day of travel by paying the difference, if Class J or First Class has seats available.

Q. The seat search says “sold out”. Does that mean the sale seats are gone?

Not necessarily. JAL states that, because of how the system works, flights with no sale fare set at all also display as “sold out”. When you see it, check whether that flight is on the route’s list of eligible flights before concluding you were too slow.

Q. I already have a booking. Can I switch it to the sale fare?

Not directly. JAL requires you to cancel the existing booking and buy a new ticket, and the cancellation is charged under the rules of your original fare. Compare what you lose on the refund against what you save on the sale fare before doing anything.

Q. What else do I pay besides the fare?

The Passenger Facility Charge, once at each end if both airports levy it. For adults that is ¥580 at Haneda, ¥340 at Itami, ¥370 at New Chitose, ¥240 at Naha and ¥110 at Fukuoka, among others. Memanbetsu, Obihiro, Ishigaki and Miyako, for example, do not charge it. It is refunded in full if you cancel.

Q. Do checked bags and seat selection cost extra on a sale ticket?

No. JAL domestic includes 20kg of checked baggage per person with no limit on the number of pieces (up to 50 × 60 × 120cm total), and seat selection is free at the time of booking. Worth remembering when you line this up against a low-cost carrier’s headline fare.

Q. If I miss out, when is the next one?

Two options. First, wait for returns: because cancelling more than 55 days ahead costs only about 5%, seats often reappear around early October, so it is worth re-running the seat search then. Second, wait for the next sale — historically JAL has run domestic flash sales roughly once every one to two months. We cover each one as it lands in our flight deal alerts.

Bottom line

Stripped down, this sale trades “no changes and half the miles” for the lowest fares of the season, and only across the 24 days from 1 to 24 December. The New Year peak is outside the window, so this is not a ticket for going home over the holidays — it is a ticket for flying somewhere on a weekday before Christmas.

Three things to do: get JMB numbers for everyone travelling before 7 September, confirm your card is enrolled in 3-D Secure, and pick your top three flights in advance. Then join the waiting room around 23:30 on 8 September, book at 0:00, and pay the same day.

If the islands are what you are after, these numbers are genuinely low: Naha–Kumejima ¥5,390, Naha–Ishigaki and Naha–Miyako ¥5,500, Fukuoka–Miyazaki ¥5,940, the four Hokkaido routes ¥6,160. None of these are expensive routes to begin with, but they do not often come down this far. If your plans are still fluid, though, the flexibility of Special Saver or a shareholder voucher may simply be worth more than the discount. This time you are choosing between cheap and free to change.

Sources

・JAL｜Domestic flight time sale (sale dates, travel period, virtual waiting room, payment methods — Japanese)
・JAL press release no. 20260901 — Promotion fares for travel 1 Nov – 24 Dec 2026 (full route fare table, PDF, Japanese)
・JAL｜Promotion user guide (changes, cancellation charges, mileage accrual — English)
・JAL｜Passenger Facility Charge for domestic flights (amounts by airport and when they apply)
・JAL｜Domestic checked baggage (free allowance)
・JAL｜Domestic Fares (Flex / Saver / Special Saver — English)
・Cashback rates: the sites’ own public pages and a comparison aggregator, as of 2 September 2026.
All amounts here were compiled at the times stated. Fares, cashback rates and campaign terms change — check the relevant official page before you book.