mrwunrfl - The fares listed on travelocity are the ones that the airline has uploaded to the reservation system. I found that the date you enter in the search page doesn't matter, or is useless. So, you have to click on each fare that interest you, and then look the fine print to see what dates are valid, what day of the week, and all the restrictions one by one.

It's a tool to see what kind of fares are out there, in a very general sense. Then, I'll go to itasoftware to find the exact price on the date of travel.

And for the other casual travellers reading this thread - keep in mind that all these fares we can search online are only the published fares. Airlines still rely on consolidators to sell a lot of tickets to Asia. Those are usually non-upgradeable, or in case of DL/CO, only give you 50% elite-qualifying miles. But still don't rule them out. For example, I just helped my parents and relatives research on IAH-HKG in September on CO. Lowest published, 100% EQM, fares are about $1,085. Our travel agent can get it for about $840 through their consolidator contact. My parents claimed a couple of 60K awards instead.

I second the recommendation that you check with JAL PAK. Jal Pak is a consolidator owned by JAL. They can give much lower fares on JAL than JAL itself. I used the NYC office for my recent trip and found Stan in the NYC office very helpful. He got me the best price and was able to get me on flights that travel agents said were sold out. JAL only releases so many seats at a time. They can also arrange for a rail pass if you need one. Good Luck.

<b>dgruzew</b>,

You never posted here again so maybe you already have your tickets, but I'll say it again. If you could wait till 10/27 (the earliest outbound for this sale), AA will fly you into Tokyo and out of Osaka for $630 all in. That's a good fare out of ORD.

Have a great trip!

AA,

Thanks - I did not see that one, but I did see an AA leaving the 14th for 738 or somthing (connecting in LAX from Osaka, but non-stop to Tokyo)

We are have not made out minds up yet on the trip - It looks like AA and United just went on sale to Europe this Fall also( we have a list of places we want to go, which ever timing and price works best will help us decide where we go)

Thanks for all the help on this board

mrwunrfl, I probably was the one who posted about using miles for business class upgrades. I can normally get upgradable tickets to Hong Kong, Bangkok or Singapore (from Seattle) for US$900 - 1100 each, vs. a price of over $4000 for purchasing a business class ticket. I am a premier exec, so I do get lots of miles on the flight, as well as the mileage contributing to my continued elite status. I earn miles also on my Visa card, so I have had plenty of miles to burn.

I figure how much my frequent flier miles are buying me. The usual calculation is that most people get about 2 cents a frequent flier mile that they spend. If I pay 60,000 frequent flier miles to pay $1000 rather than $4000 for a RT in business class, I'm getting 5 cents a mile for my frequent flier miles. Add in the number of miles I earn (about 36,000 RT to Singapore), and it seems like a win-win situation to me!

Ok, it wouldn't make any sense to be sitting in coach with a million miles in your account.