HunyBadger

I hope to draw from your experience as I am not very familiar with travel to Asia....

We're visiting OGG(Kahului, Maui) from PHL for a family wedding on April 28, 2012. Since the week after the wedding is Golden Week in Japan, it seemed prudent to visit before the wedding, arriving to help on April 25th. However, doesn't this put us awfully close to sakura viewing time? Maybe that's why the fares are so great? Won't hotel rates and everything else also be higher as well (not to mention lesseb availability)?

What is a reasonable fare to Narita from Kahului in mid April? So far I've only seen $1300+. If this is "normal" than I might need to rethink our trip entirely (b/c we still have to purchase fares from home in PHL). I thought it would be cheaper doing r/t PHL - OGG and a separate r/t OGG - NRT set of flights but does it make more sense to do PHL - NRT - OGG - PHL instead? Are fares cheaper on certain days more than others? I have a 83k FF miles with United (negligible amts on Delta and USAir) but have no idea how to use them with savvy (any tips in that department would be welcome).

Japan was our first choice because I've always dreamed of going back since visiting when I was 8. Sakura would be a bonus but not required. I am beginning to wonder though if this may not be the best time, especially given the timing (possibly sakura season) and also that we are only planning now (July 2011).

What do you think?

mrwunrfl

You would be too late for cherry blossoms in Tokyo. You could find some cb farther north, though.

You will have to fly via Honolulu to get to OGG from NRT. You can use your United miles to fly PHL-NRT-HNL-PHL. That would be 65,000 miles in economy. You might be able to bet PHL-NRT-HNL-OGG-PHL on the same ticket, but I doubt it.

A roundtrip between HNL and OGG would be 10,000 miles. You would be just 2000 miles short of getting one ticket for PHL-NRT-HNL-PHL plus two roundtrips HNL-OGG.

For a second traveler, you should be able to find a decent roundtrip fare PHL-NRT that allows a stopover in HNL at about the same price as a PHL-NRT roundtirp. You might have to pay $100 for the stopover at HNL. Do a search for a PHL-HNL roundtrip by any route and then do a multiple city search that includes the HNL stop. Also search for exactly what you want and compare.

I think it is too early to search for airfares for April. I wouldn't be looking to buy until November or maybe October. It is not too early or too late to look for an FF award seat for April.

For the award, use the Continental search. You are able to transfer miles from UA to CO.

I would also look for an award ticket for PHL-NRT-HNL - open jaw - OGG -PHL. An award from Continental would allow this (a stopover and open jaw) on a 65,000 mile award (I am pretty sure).

HunyBadger

mrwunrfl, thank you. This is exactly the kind of info I was looking for! I never realized it would be too EARLY to look for fares (but I did note your comment about not being too early to look for FF seats). Re the cherry blossoms, any comment about why the hotels were booked already? Was it just a coincidence that the 2 I looked at were not available on the dates I wanted?

Is it difficult to buy an award ticket for one person and then a full fare companion ticket for another? How are they linked together for any changes and seat assignments?

For arguments sake, would it be a better use of the FF miles to upgrade to business or first class(assuming I could do so), rather than use them to "purchase" an economy ticket? What is cattle class like these days overseas? Is it similar to flights to Europe or is there a little bit more leg room?

Regarding the open jaw...If I went this route, pardon my ignorance, but HOW do I do that? I've always purchased r/t flights online. Do I need a travel agent or the air carrier to figure that out?

I wasn't too concerned before about the HNL-OGG part of the flight but wonder now how (again) to "link" them to a flight coming from NRT. Since the luggage won't be sent all the way through, we'll need to pick up baggage, then check in domestically? Since usually we bypass HNL when visiting OGG, how much time these days would be suggested to handle all that transfer?

Mara

Many hotels in Japan only allow booking about 90 days ahead so it's a bit early for April 2012.

As far as airfares - I am in NYC and use American - right now I am looking at going to NRT around Thanksgiving and the fare is over $1300. When I was planning to go the end of March this year which I canceled, the fare was under $800.

mrwunrfl

I will assume that when you wrote "full fare ticket" you meant a revenue ticket - a ticket bought with money. "Full fare" means full price and fully refundable, and not advance purchase discounted non-refundable fares. You get the revenue ticket the usual way, with a credit card. Actually, it might be tricky to get an award ticket and a revenue ticket at a reasonable fare on the same flights.

You can put a UA award reservation on hold (72 hours, I think). With UA, you can also cancel a revenue ticket within 24 hours of booking.

Upgrading one ticket would cost 30,000 miles and $600 for PHL->NRT one-way on United. It is possible to upgrade on partners but the fare would probably be way too high. Going for an upgrade on UA means that you might pay a higher fare than available on another carrier, and then your upgrade might not clear (in which case you get back the miles & money).

If you get the two tickets separately then you just call the airline to link them.

Economy seating will be the same as for Europe. Do you have status with UA that would get you economy plus seats?

Search for the open jaw tickets using the "multiple destinations" option. This might be on the "advanced search options" page (at united or fly-ana or travelocity or ...). You would just put in your three legs:
PHL-NRT
NRT-HNL
OGG-PHL
and choose the dates for each leg. What are your travel dates?

mrwunrfl

Ok, booking that revenue ticket will be tricky. I did an award search PHL-NRT and can get economy on the 18th PHL-EWR-NRT. NRT-HNL-OGG on the 24th (25th not avaliable without going via SFO). OGG-LAX-PHL on the 30th.

To get a matching revenue ticket pretty much means having to put in each segment of the award ticket:
PHL-EWR - 18th
EWR-NRT - 18th
NRT-HNL - 24th
HNL-OGG - 24th
OGG-LAX - 30th
LAX-PHL - 30th
so, a 6 segment multi-destination trip. There has to be a better way.

Kathie

I find if I am doing something complicated in terms of award tickets, it always pay to call United and get it done over the phone. I'd call them and ask them to book both the award ticket and the revenue ticket at the same time, have them search for dates that work. Also, I won't book an upgrade ticket unless they can guarantee me the upgrade at the time of booking. That typically means booking as soon as they release seats, 330 days out.

Kathie

PS It will cost you $20 a perosn to have them do it, but it's well worth it to me!

rhkkmk

i find the call is always worth it in the end... all kinds of things materialize that are not evident on line

mrwunrfl

At Continental, after you select the flights for an award ticket it also shows you how much it would cost in money. Strange thing was that when I did three one-way searches for each of the 3 legs of your trip I found availability, including NRT-HNL-OGG. When I did a multi-destination search it only found NRT-SFO-OGG for the middle leg. If you call then CO should be able to put together the better itinerary onto one award ticket and give you the price for a revenue ticket.

There are so many options. A simple one would be to use 80,000 miles for two open-jaw roundtrips PHL-HNL/OGG-PHL and then buy tix for HNL-NRT-OGG. On the day that you arrive in HNL on the award ticket, or the day after, you would fly to NRT on the revenue ticket. Only problem with this would be missing the HNL-NRT flight if you arrived HNL late. Or you could spend a couple of nights in Honolulu before going on to Tokyo.

HunyBadger

Wow! This is very enlightening. I had NO IDEA this was how "youse" planned complicated flights. I feel like a real travel newbie. *sleeve-rollup* I guess I better start some time, eh?

mrwunrfl _ thank you for flexing the search muscles to give me examples. These really help me see what I should be working towards.

mrwunrfl - Does CO have better flight routes to NRT or are they a better carrier? I've had little exposure to them and just wondering why the focus on them. Not that I'm wed to UA, just curious really.

Sounds like calling UA/CO might be the best bet. But I have not given up on doing it online. Usually I use kayak for getting fares ranges. They have a multileg feature which I've always found intimidating. as rhkkmk said "all kind of things materialize"... Still, I'm willing to go there and to UA/CO to give it all a shot.