I had shared a few months ago that I was able to book Biz on JAL via KLM for September next year, ORD to HND. I finally booked our return yesterday after searching for weeks and hoping I could at least score PE on the way back. I had been searching HND to ORD and JFK and even the west coast (we're in Ohio) knowing I'd have to reposition. Well, on a whim I decided to check Osaka to CLE (on the AA website) and low and behold there were 4 Biz seats available for 60K points each! The flight is KIX -> HND -> ORD -> CLE, so a total of 3 flights. But, we would have had to take the train from KIX to HND anyway since we plan to end our trip in Osaka, this way we can check our luggage all the way through (I know we'll have to get it in Chicago and recheck).
I had enough AA miles to book 2 of them with 35K miles left. AA was having a buy miles deal (ends today) so for just over $2200 I purchased 85K more miles and was able to book the other 2 tickets. From my limited research it seems like a one way flight from Japan in economy is roughly $1000 - give or take so although it kind of freaked me out to purchase that amount of miles, I think all in all we got a pretty good deal! Oh, I had put all 4 on a 24 hour hold while we decided on purchasing those miles.
All this to say, don't discount purchasing miles if it makes sense and you know you can get the flight you want (put on hold), and check other airports! I was shocked to be able to book all the way to CLE on one ticket! That portion is on AA while the other 2 flights are on JAL.
This is a college graduation gift for my DD, she graduates in May. At first it was going to be just the 2 of us, but now DH and DD's boyfriend are also going. I think I will have created a monster after she experiences JAL Biz class! She's used to sitting in 37B on Frontier lol!
Now to start working on lodging...