{"id":10559,"date":"2024-10-24T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-24T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=10559"},"modified":"2024-10-23T22:58:04","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T04:58:04","slug":"unsung-hero-candidate-the-jal-premium-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/24\/unsung-hero-candidate-the-jal-premium-card\/","title":{"rendered":"Unsung Hero Candidate: The JAL Premium Card"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Introduction<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the quirkiest mainstream airline programs is JAL Mileage Bank, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jalusacard.com\/en\/new-enrollment-2024\/\">they&#8217;ve released a couple of new quirky co-brand credit cards that match their big quirk energy (BQE)<\/a>. They dive straight in by offering <em>one<\/em> Mastercard network card with <em>two<\/em> tiers, chosen at application time:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Basic: $35 annual fee, waived the first year<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Premium: $85 annual fee, waived the first year<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The sign-up bonus for both is 5,000 Mileage Bank miles after $5,000 spend in three billing cycles, and the Premium tier has an additional 5,000 miles after another $2,000 spend. For ongoing spend, you&#8217;ll earn 0.5x on the Basic or 1x on the Premium. Both cards earn 2x on JAL flights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Whale Angle<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The Premium tier earns 5 Life Status Points (yes, that&#8217;s really what they&#8217;re called) for every $1,500 in spend. After 1,500 Life Status Points earned, you get <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jal.co.jp\/jp\/en\/jmb\/lsp\/jgc\/three-st\/\">JAL Global Club Three Star status<\/a> for life, which also gets you <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jal.co.jp\/jp\/en\/jalmile\/flyon\/premier.html\">JGC Premier status<\/a> (second to highest JAL frequent flyer tier), which includes at least oneworld Sapphire status, and potentially also includes oneworld Emerald status; the terms are rather-unclear and no-one&#8217;s had time to try this yet to be sure. So, just spend $450,000 and get lifetime Sapphire or Emerald status, provided you pay 2,000 miles as a &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jal.co.jp\/jp\/en\/jmb\/lsp\/jgc\/qualification\/\">membership fee<\/a>&#8221; annually. Quirky enough yet?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oneworld Sapphire is great because it grants you access to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>AA lounges including Flagship even when flying domestically<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Alaska lounges, even when flying domestically<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>If you end up with oneworld Emerald, you&#8217;ll also get access to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Qantas First lounges, even when flying domestically<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Cathay Pacific First lounges, even when flying domestically<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>If $450,000 in spend is <a href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/18\/when-big-numbers-seem-small-but-arent\/\">just another couple of days for you<\/a> and you could easily burn 450,000 JAL Mileage Bank miles, then you can have some fun and some weird status if nothing else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Other Quirks<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>There are more quirks to contend with:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Mileage Bank miles expire after three years even if you hold the card, unless you hold JGC Three Star status or higher in which case they don&#8217;t expire<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Paid tickets earn 10% \u201csector bonus\u201d miles for every flight for cardholders<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You earn 5,000 bonus miles on your first flight paid for with the card<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>You earn 5,000 bonus miles when booking your first flight with JAL International <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>There&#8217;s a promotion code to use during application, but it&#8217;s prefilled and non-editable: <em>AFSPG1024<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>There&#8217;s more too, but the main quirks are covered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Bonus: JAL MileageBank Sweet Spots<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>JAL MileageBank is traditionally a great program with a few (surprise) quirks. Sweet spots include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>140,000 miles for JAL first round-trip awards<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>100,000 miles for Emirates business one-way awards<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>24,000-30,000 miles for an upgrade from paid economy to business on JAL metal<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Distance flown based partner redemptions with three stop-overs, including mixed partners<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Early-ish access to JAL first and business awards<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Good luck!<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"546\" height=\"260\" src=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/2024-10-23-14.32.16.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10560\" srcset=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/2024-10-23-14.32.16.jpg 546w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/2024-10-23-14.32.16-300x143.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 546px) 100vw, 546px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:14px\">Never fear, JAL&#8217;s own website is just as quirky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Introduction One of the quirkiest mainstream airline programs is JAL Mileage Bank, and they&#8217;ve released a couple of new quirky co-brand credit cards that match<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[60,54,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-airlines","category-credit-cards","category-unsung-heroes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10559"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10564,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10559\/revisions\/10564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}