We finally bought our tickets to fly from Washington DC to Tokyo and back in April. Started watching prices about 7 months ago. At that time non-stops were around $1,900 and one-stops around $1,600. We've watched prices slowly drop since then--a couple of weeks ago they had dropped to $1,500/$1,250.

Finally, yesterday we booked nonstop for $1,100 each ($1086.29).

We know we will spend time in Tokyo, Nagoya (visit friends), Kyoto, and eitehr Gokayama or Shirakawa-go. Most nights we'll spend in less expensive hotels, but we will try a ryokan for some portion of our trip.

We are excited and have our Japanese language CDs going hot and heavy.

Congratulations! My husband and I have been watching prices since September for our April trip. On Friday, we saw the fare from MCO to NRT drop to $1,092 on United, so we booked. I'm sure it will go lower at some point, but we're content with our decision - we got the dates, flight times and connections we wanted. We haven't started practicing Japanese yet...maybe in March, we are the last minute cramming types! Heh!

Both of those fares are booking class L. United booking classes in economy are (from highest price/lowest restrictions to lowest price/ highest restrictions): Y, B, M, H, Q, V, W, S, K, L and T. If a T fare is ever offered for your period of travel it might be only a $50 difference. If I was looking for the lowest price on United, I would be happy with an L fare.

Thanks, mrwunrfl. I know that we are happy with the price. We said $1,200 or less and we're booking it, so we definitely feel like we got a fair deal. I know I will be miserable in the economy seats (I was when we went to Europe), but the end result will be worth it!

Wow, L tickets to NRT. Such a deal! Great for you guys.

When are your dates? Being from DC,are you going to view the cherry blossoms?

Aloha!

We're traveling April 4-18. We hope to catch the blossums somewhere along the way--Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto, Takayama, Kanazawa. We do have a good chance; it all depends on Mother Nature.