JAL Pay × Apple Pay: Up to 100% Back, ¥1,000 in Total

Last updated: 2 September 2026. JAL’s official campaign page always takes precedence over this article.

What you actually walk away with

JAL Payment Port — the company behind JAL Pay, jointly owned by Japan Airlines, JAL SBI Fintech and Docomo SMTB Net Bank — is running a campaign from 1 September to 31 October 2026 called 「JAL Pay Apple Payで最大100％ポイントバックキャンペーン」. The rule is simple enough that you don’t need a calculator: register, pay with JAL Pay through Apple Pay, and everything you spend up to ¥500 in a given month comes back as JAL Pay points.

Up to 500 points in September, up to 500 more in October, for up to 1,000 JAL Pay points in total. These are worth ¥1 each and are applied straight to your next JAL Pay payment — no conversion, no haircut.

Put plainly: buy a drink and an onigiri once in September and once in October, and those ¥1,000 are effectively free. Most cashback promotions in Japan take the shape of “spend ¥5,000 or more, get a percentage back.” This one caps the reward very low but pays the full amount inside that cap, which means you never have to spend more than you wanted to in order to qualify — an unusual and welcome shape. If this whole category of Japanese promotions is new to you, our beginner’s guide to points and rewards in Japan is the place to start.

How the cashback works: ¥500 a month, at 100%

JAL’s wording is 「各月500円までを上限に、ご利用金額の全額をポイント還元」 — up to ¥500 per month, the full spend comes back. The cleanest way to hold it in your head is 100% inside the cap, 0% above it.

The important detail is that the ¥500 allowance does not roll over. JAL’s terms spell it out: the tally is done per campaign month, with the example “no use in September, use in October — only the October benefit is awarded.” To collect the full 1,000 points you need at least one qualifying payment in each of the two months.

Getting set up, step by step

JAL breaks this into six steps. The order of registration, Apple Pay setup and qualifying spend doesn’t matter — pay first and register afterwards and you’re still covered, as long as everything happens inside the campaign window. Registering first is simply the version you can’t forget.

1. Register on the campaign pageOpen JAL’s campaign page and click 「エントリーはこちら」 or 「キャンペーンに登録する」. You need to be logged in as a JAL Mileage Bank (JMB) member. Without this step nothing you spend counts, and it is by far the most common way people miss out.
2. Install the JAL Mileage Bank appJAL Pay lives inside the JMB app rather than in an app of its own. iOS 15 or later is required.
3. Complete the JAL Pay setupIn the app, open the JAL Pay tab and tap 「JAL Payを設定」. You’ll enter a one-time password, accept the terms, complete SMS two-factor authentication and fill in your details. JAL describes opening an account as taking “as little as five minutes with just your phone”; in practice it depends on your connection and how quickly the SMS arrives.
4. Add JAL Pay to Apple Pay — the step this campaign hinges onInside the app, tap the JAL Pay button, then the Apple Pay button, and follow the prompts to add the card to your Apple Wallet. Once it’s there you never need to open the JMB app to pay again.
5. Top up your balanceYou can load funds by credit card, bank transfer, JAL NEOBANK direct debit or internet banking, and you can also convert miles into balance. Fees and card choice are covered in section 9.
6. Pay with Apple PayAt the register, say 「クイックペイで」 (kuikku pei de) or 「タッチ決済で」 (tatchi kessai de) — or 「マスターカードで」 if the shop takes Mastercard contactless. Double-click the side button on your iPhone, authenticate with Face ID or Touch ID, and hold it to the reader. Online, choose the Apple Pay button and authenticate.

Which payments count, and which quietly don’t

This is where the points are most often lost. JAL Pay can be paid with in several ways, but only three of them qualify, and all three run through Apple Pay.

The other thing worth knowing is that the source of the balance doesn’t matter. JAL’s terms state that the type of balance used for the Apple Pay payment is not restricted, and that paying with JAL Pay points also qualifies. So the 500 points you earn in September can be spent in October and that payment still earns October’s cashback. JAL also confirms that when you have a JAL Pay point balance, it is applied ahead of your yen balance automatically, so there is no setting to toggle.

The timeline: entry, spending, posting, expiry

• 1 September – 31 October 2026The campaign window. Register and spend via Apple Pay. September and October are tallied independently.
• Late September 2026JAL has announced that a JAL Card holders’ bonus for October will be published on the campaign page around this time. Eligibility is judged on whether you hold a JAL Card at the end of the campaign. Worth a second look at the end of September if you have one.
• Mid-December 2026 (planned)JAL runs the tally. Any transaction whose final sales data hasn’t reached JAL by then is left out.
• By the end of December 2026Points are credited.
• 31 January 2027The points earned in this campaign expire — the end of the month following the month they were credited. Spend them before this date.

Is “up to 100%” real? The three things holding it up

“100% back” reasonably makes people look for the catch. In this case there isn’t a hidden condition in the rules — but the word up to is doing work, and it rests on three things.

So it isn’t free money so much as a completely ordinary payment-acquisition campaign: JAL is spending ¥1,000 to get the card into your wallet and used twice. From your side the terms are hard to argue with — if you live in Japan and have an iPhone, there’s essentially no risk. To be precise about it though: the ¥1,000 is only a real gain if it’s money you were going to spend anyway. Buying something you don’t need in order to qualify is not a win.

One more thing to state plainly: benefits like this may be taxable. JAL’s terms note that you should check the tax treatment with your local tax office. At these amounts it rarely matters in practice, but that is what the rules say.

New to JAL Pay? Stack the sign-up offer for up to 1,300 points

If you don’t have JAL Pay yet, the timing is good: the sign-up campaign (2026, round 2) also runs until 31 October, and the two can be completed together.

Add the two together and you get up to 1,300 points as a JAL Card holder, or up to 1,150 points otherwise. The ¥3,000 top-up requirement does leave a balance sitting in the account, but JAL Pay works at Mastercard merchants, so spending it down is not difficult.

What JAL Pay actually is, and whether it’s worth opening

JAL Pay is a prepaid smartphone payment product from JAL Payment Port, running on the Mastercard network, with no sign-up or annual fee. The operator is registered in Japan as a third-party prepaid payment instrument issuer and a funds transfer business. Unlike PayPay or d払い, which are QR-first wallets, the mental model that fits best is “a Mastercard prepaid card that lives in your Apple Wallet.”

Whether it has value beyond this campaign comes down to three things.

Being honest about it: if you don’t fly JAL and aren’t collecting miles, JAL Pay won’t beat a decent credit card on everyday returns — 0.5% domestically is simply average. In that case the accurate framing is “open it for the 1,000 points, keep it for your next trip abroad.” The baseline of your everyday returns is better built with cards and points sites: see our Rakuten Card guide, the Amex Gold Preferred referral guide, or the credit-card fund-investment loop for something more systematic.

If you are already collecting JAL miles, the calculation changes — this is one of the few tools that connects ordinary spending to JAL’s elite status ladder, which is covered in section 10. Worth adding that the other main route to JAL miles is direct conversion from points sites: both Hapitas and Moppy support it, and Moppy periodically runs boosted JAL offers.

Credit-card top-ups carry their own separate limits (Shopping only and Shopping + ATM: ¥50,000 per transaction, ¥100,000 per day, ¥300,000 per month; no course selected: ¥20,000 per transaction, ¥20,000 per day, ¥50,000 per month). Top-ups from a JAL Card have higher limits again. With no course selected you cannot use JAL NEOBANK or Docomo SMTB Net Bank direct debit to load funds. Figures from JAL’s official course comparison page.

For this campaign alone, leaving the account on “no course selected” is enough — ¥50,000 per transaction, day and month leaves plenty of room for a ¥500 purchase. Upgrade only if you want to take it overseas or withdraw local currency from an ATM. If you’re comparing your options for spending money abroad, our Wise guide covers the wider picture.

Topping up without losing 2.75% on the way in

JAL Pay has to be loaded before you can spend. There are five ways to do it, plus an auto top-up setting.

If you don’t have a Mastercard or JCB card to hand, the two below are common choices. To be clear about what the fee exemption does and doesn’t tell you: whether the 2.75% applies depends purely on the card’s brand. Whether a given card awards its own points for prepaid top-ups is a separate matter set by each issuer, so check the current terms for the card you’re using.

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Converting miles: only worth it from 10,000

You can turn JAL miles into JAL Pay points and spend them like cash, but the rate is tiered and the gap is large.

Below 10,000 miles, holding a JAL NEOBANK account gets you a better rate than the table above (apply through the JMB app); the figures shown are for members without one. Note too that points converted from miles expire at the end of the same month one year after the conversion — a different clock from this campaign’s points, which expire on 31 January 2027.

One more comparison worth having: JAL Pay points are not the highest-value exit for miles. e JAL Points convert at 1,000 miles for 1,000 points but 10,000 miles for 15,000 points, which is ¥1.5 per mile from 10,000 up — except that they can only be spent on JAL flights and JALPAK tours. The split is straightforward: e JAL Points for the rate, JAL Pay points for the freedom to spend anywhere.

The practical conclusion is to not cash out small mile balances in a hurry — ¥0.5 per mile is selling low. Save up past 10,000 and convert in one go, or keep them for award flights. If you want to build returns on the banking side as well, our Dai-ichi Life NEOBANK guide is a good example of the genre.

What’s left after the campaign: Mile UP and Life Status Points

Once the 1,000 points are banked, do you keep JAL Pay? It depends almost entirely on whether you care about JAL miles. Since January 2026 the Mile UP Program has raised the ceiling to 1.8% domestically and 2.0% on foreign-currency spending, built from three stacking benefits.

1. JAL Pay Step (+0.2% to +0.6%)

Your step for the month is determined by three figures — number of payments, amount spent and amount loaded — and it lifts that month’s mile rate.

These are JAL’s official Mile UP Program conditions; the table is published as an image on JAL’s page, and the figures here come from its alt text. Only cash top-ups and JAL Card top-ups count toward the top-up figure — JAL defines cash top-ups as bank transfer, internet banking and JAL NEOBANK or Docomo SMTB Net Bank direct debit. Refunds back to JAL NEOBANK are deducted from the total.

2. Post-trip bonus (+0.5%)

Make at least one in-person payment at a physical store overseas during a month, and your domestic yen payments earn +0.5% from the 2nd of the following month to the 1st of the month after that. JAL’s example: pay in person overseas between 1 and 31 January, and yen payments from 2 February to 1 March get the boost. Two things to watch: online foreign-currency payments do not qualify — it has to be in person at a physical store — and choosing DCC at the terminal (paying in yen abroad) doesn’t count either. JAL emails you at the start of the following month if you’ve qualified.

3. JAL NEOBANK foreign-currency deposit bonus (+0.2%)

Hold ¥500,000 or more in foreign-currency ordinary deposits at JAL NEOBANK at month end, and JAL Pay spending earns +0.2% from the 2nd of the following month to the 1st of the month after that. A high bar, so realistically a bonus for people already holding foreign currency.

Life Status Points, if you’re chasing JGC

The direct link between JAL Pay and LSP is the JAL Pay × JAL Card top-up programme:

• Condition 1: load ¥40,000 or more from a JAL Card into JAL Pay during the month
• Condition 2: in the same month, make at least one in-store contactless or Apple Pay online payment with JAL Pay via Apple Pay or Google Pay
• Reward: 1 LSP per month (capped at 1 per month). No registration needed
• Period: 10 June 2026 to 31 March 2027
• Credited: at the end of the third month after you qualify (qualify in June, credited by the end of September)
• Excluded: top-ups from a JAL Card enrolled in the Raku-Pay revolving payment plan

Ordinary JAL Pay spending also earns LSP, but the definition is narrow: only “base miles” count — the 0.5% on yen payments and 1.2% on foreign currency — at 400 miles per LSP. The extra miles from the Mile UP Program, and campaign bonus miles, are not counted toward LSP. Conveniently, this Apple Pay campaign overlaps exactly with condition 2 above, so JAL Card holders who also make the ¥40,000 top-up in September and October collect the cashback and the LSP at the same time.

Ten ways people lose these points

1. Forgetting to register. The first line of JAL’s terms is that without registration you are not eligible. Do this before anything else.
2. Paying by QR code. The 「読み取る」 (Smart Code) flow in the app doesn’t count. It has to be Apple Pay contactless or online.
3. Using the physical card. Payments with the plastic JAL Pay prepaid card are excluded.
4. Trying it on Android. Google Pay is outside this campaign, though it is accepted for the sign-up offer.
5. Spending ¥1,000 in one month to collect it all. The cap is ¥500 per month and does not roll over. You need a payment in each of September and October.
6. Paying on the last day of the month. What counts is when the merchant’s final sales data reaches JAL, not your transaction date. Leave a few days of margin.
7. Returns and cancellations. Cancelled transactions are deducted from the total. Don’t use something you might return to hit the cap.
8. Sales data arriving after mid-December. The tally is planned for mid-December 2026; anything that hasn’t reached JAL by then is excluded.
9. Letting the points expire. They’re gone on 31 January 2027, and they can only be applied to JAL Pay payments — no miles, no cash.
10. Closing your JMB or JAL Pay account. If you’ve withdrawn by the time rewards are issued, you’re excluded. If the campaign ends early, the tally is based on your status and spending as of that date.

Frequently asked questions

When does the JAL Pay Apple Pay campaign end?

It runs from 1 September to 31 October 2026. September and October are tallied separately, with a cap of 500 points in each month.

Do I have to register, and where?

Yes, registration is required. On JAL’s official campaign page, click 「エントリーはこちら」 or 「キャンペーンに登録する」 and complete it while logged in as a JMB member. Spending without registration does not count. The order doesn’t matter, though — registration, adding the card to Apple Pay and spending can happen in any sequence as long as all of it falls inside the campaign period.

Can I take part on Android with Google Pay?

Not for the 100% cashback. Only QUICPay, Mastercard contactless and online payments made through Apple Pay are eligible. JAL Pay does work with Google Pay, but only for QUICPay+, and Mastercard contactless is Apple Pay only. The concurrent sign-up campaign, worth up to 300 points, does accept Google Pay.

How much should I spend each month?

Exactly ¥500. Everything inside the cap comes back at 100% and nothing above it does, so ¥500 is where the effective rate peaks. Several smaller payments adding up to ¥500 within the same month work just as well.

Is “up to 100%” genuine, or is there a catch?

There is no hidden condition in the rules, but “up to” refers to the first ¥500 each month. JAL’s cost is capped at ¥1,000 over two months, which makes this a fairly standard payment-acquisition campaign. The things to keep in mind are that the points expire on 31 January 2027 and can only be applied to JAL Pay payments.

Which payments are excluded?

Payments with the physical JAL Pay prepaid card, QR code payments such as Smart Code, and Google Pay. Only QUICPay, Mastercard contactless and online payments via Apple Pay qualify.

When are the points credited, and when do they expire?

They are credited by the end of December 2026 and expire on 31 January 2027, which is the end of the month following the month of crediting. JAL plans to run the tally in mid-December 2026, and any transaction whose final sales data has not reached JAL by then is left out.

If I pay with JAL Pay points, does that payment still qualify?

Yes. JAL states that the type of balance used for the Apple Pay payment is not restricted and that paying with JAL Pay points is also eligible. So points earned in September can be spent in October and that payment counts toward October’s cashback. Note that payments made with points earn no miles, however.

Can the JAL Pay points be converted to miles or withdrawn as cash?

Neither. JAL Pay points are worth ¥1 each and exist to be applied to JAL Pay payments; conversion only runs one way, from miles into points. They also cannot be used for advance currency exchange or refunded to a bank account, including JAL NEOBANK.

Can foreign residents in Japan open JAL Pay?

Yes. The requirement is that you are a JMB member aged 12 or over living in Japan; nationality is not a condition. JMB membership is free. Minors need a guardian’s consent in advance, and Apple’s rules mean under-13s cannot set up or use Apple Pay.

If I’m opening JAL Pay now, can I combine both campaigns?

Yes. The sign-up campaign, promotion code JPP2607, also runs until 31 October. You need to open the account with the code applied, add JAL Pay to Apple Pay or Google Pay, and load ¥3,000 or more. It pays 300 points to JAL Card holders and 150 points to other JMB members, so the two campaigns together come to a maximum of 1,300 points. Anyone who already holds a JAL Global WALLET card is excluded from the sign-up campaign.

Are there fees for topping up?

Bank transfer, internet banking, JAL NEOBANK direct debit, mile conversion and credit-card top-ups from Mastercard or JCB brands are all free. Only Visa-branded credit cards incur a fee, at 2.75% including tax, and JAL Cards and cards carrying the Saison logo are exempt from that.

Fitting these 1,000 points into a bigger routine

A thousand points is not a lot on its own. What actually moves the needle over a year is having a routine that catches offers like this one every time rather than occasionally. A few things that connect directly.

1. Check the day’s sales before you buy anything. We update Amazon, Rakuten Ichiba and Yahoo! Shopping promotions daily, at Amazon deals, Rakuten Ichiba deals and Yahoo! Shopping deals. To watch all three in one place, there’s our Mottoku guide — and to be upfront, Mottoku is a site we run ourselves.

2. The same offer is often priced differently across points sites. The gap is widest exactly where the amounts are largest — card applications, bank accounts, mobile contracts — so comparing before you apply is the highest-leverage minute you’ll spend. That’s what we built PointNavi for (the site itself is at pointnavi.app). Said plainly: it’s fine if the comparison doesn’t put us on top. Applying through whichever entry point pays most is the correct move.

3. Take the referral bonuses you’re entitled to first. Bank accounts, points sites and payment apps pay these once, but they’re usually far larger than any everyday cashback rate. Everything currently valid is collected on our referral code list.

4. Look at the travel side too. Since we’re already talking about JAL miles, flights and rail fares are worth watching in parallel: the JAL Card Skymate youth fare sale (from ¥6,930 one way) and the half-price Toku-da-ne Special 28 Shinkansen fares are both durable tactics rather than one-offs.