Flying to Japan in October with FF miles but curious about adding on a layover
 

I hope I'm posting this in the right place. I plan on calling the airline, but wanted to post here first to get some opinions or suggestions.

Okay, so DH and I are flying r/t Charlotte to Tokyo in October using AA miles; the tickets are already booked. I read on here that there is an option of a free layover on the way to or from your destination. Now that we have a few extra days of vacation to use we are curious to know if this would apply to us.

We would love to layover in a different country. However, because we are going in October the awards flights to Japan are quite a few miles less than the SEA countries (50,000 vs 75,000 miles). Both China and South Korea are all in the same mileage zone as Japan so we would probably have to stick to one of these. I'm just curious if there is a way to change our flight coming home, or going over, to add, say, an extra night or two layover in Seoul or Shanghi? I understand that there would be fees involved, and thats perfectly fine (if they are within reason, of course) but I'm just trying to find out if this is even possible.

Again, I do plan on calling the airline but if mileage experts here all agree that this would be a no-go then I don't want to waste my time trying to explain the situation to them.

Any thoughts?

Thanks!
Tracy

Start by reading the fine print about your fare/frequent flier ticket. For instance, I buy a ticket on United and use my ff miles to upgrade to Biz. I am flying from Seattle to Bangkok, changing planes at Narita. When I read the fine print on my ticket, I could schedule a two-day stopover in Japan for no extra fee. But every ticket (ok, every booking class) has different requirements and restrictions.

For your tickets, it sounds like you fly directly into Japan from the US, so you aren't stopping anywhere in Asia before you get to your destination. Given that, you really don't have an Asian city that could be a stop-over. If your flight goes from say, Charlotte to San Francisco before flying to Narita, you could qualify for a stop-over in San Francisco. But a stop-over does NOT mean that you could simply add another Asian city ro your itinerary. If you could be re-routed so you fly from the US to, say, Korea and then onward to Japan, you could use Seoul as a stop-over. I'm guessing that the AA flights don't work that way, but do take a look at their routes and their ticket restrictions.

I don't know the details on AAdvantage, but you should be able to use miles for a reward to Shanghai or Seoul with Tokyo being your stopover point. It shouldn't matter that you're staying in Tokyo longer than Shanghai/Seoul.

AA will fly you to NRT, then connect to JAL for Seoul/Shanghai. AA now flies PVG-ORD non-stop, so you can take that back from Shanghai.

Anyways, they probably need to redeposit the FF award ticket you have now and start anew. Again, I don't know the details, but you may have to pay a fee to redeposit that ticket you already have; plus there may not be available seats for the new itinerary.

Thank you both for your replies. They certainly make sense. We are flying JAL from ORD to Tokyo nonstop so there are no other layovers in Asia. DH and I discussed it and decided it wasn't worth the hassle to cancel our tickets, reissue the ff miles, and then rebook just so we can get a layover for a night or two. Its something we will think about next time we book an Asia trip though!

Thanks again!
Tracy

You might also consider making it an open-jaw trip. For example, fly into Tokyo and return from Osaka.

A common itinerary it to fly into Tokyo, visit Kyoto, and return to Tokyo. The cost of returning to Tokyo and to Narita is 12000 to 16000 yen (depending on if a JR Pass is useful or not). That could be more than the change fee to your award. And it would save a good bit of travel time.

mrwunrfl, that is what we are planning on doing. When I originally booked the flights, there were no awards seats available on a return from Osaka so we had to return from Tokyo. I just called the other day to inquire about Osaka and was told that there is a flight available from Osaka Itami, with a layover in Tokyo, the day we are leaving. We are going to call and see if we can make the change because we will be dividing our trip between Tokyo and Kyoto and this would definitely make more sense.

Thanks for your response!

Tracy