What I learned helping a friend get to Japan (pt 2, Booking)
In just over a year's time, Jim had 60,000 points – enough to fly ANA even during high season. The second half of the story is how to cleverly spend them…
In Jim's case, doing the spontaneous thing isn't going to work for him. He wants to go in spring of 2020 during cherry blossom season. There won't be many last-minute bargains or empty award seats during such a peak travel time. Once those award seats are added to the airline booking system, every day of delay means more of the seats have been snatched up by other travelers and your options start to dwindle.
He's a travel planning novice, so I let him know that while traveling with friends is awesome, coordinating group travel gets exponentially harder the more people are trying to go. Each new person on the itinerary brings the potential for unexpected family or work drama, their own preferences about airlines/hotels/destination, their own schedules and budgets, etc. It's difficult but do-able for two individual adults, but doing it for more than that is next to impossible.
I've found the easiest course of action is to just fly separately and generally agree on a date window. And honestly, by the end of a 14 day trip, you'll have seen enough of each other that a flight home solo might actually feel welcome.
Another thing that can paralyze group planning is everyone hemming and hawing on actual dates, so having a hard, unmovable event (like cherry blossom week, a destination wedding or holiday, etc) can greatly clarify and streamline planning. While ANA has a fairly friendly policy for changing award tickets, keep in mind that you still have to find an available award seat on any potential date you might change to.
One final thought on group travel: get your travel partners to put skin in the game ASAP (an IOU doesn't count!). It's amazing how many obstacles people are willing to overcome when they stand to lose a sizeable chunk of their own cash/points. There's a reason we use the phrase "getting buy-in".
Jim's travel partner tried to clear the cherry blossom dates with her boss and, long story short, she was told "No, July at the earliest", so he's proceeding with his original plan to fly there solo in March. (Japan is unpleasantly warm and humid in July).
Due to a government ruling, ANA's fuel surcharges are based on the price of jet fuel, and luckily they've come down a bit in recent months. While the trend lately with airlines has been to abandon the traditional reward pricing charts in favor of a dynamic points pricing scheme that's based on the current demand, that's not happened with ANA yet.
All told, Jim paid 60,000 points plus US$208 for his itinerary. While it was impossible to price this exact itinerary on Google Flights (it was showing $7000 in Economy!), a very similar one with a flight home on JAL from Haneda was US$1950. That works out to just shy of 3¢ per point – not bad for an Economy flight!
Booking
Booking reward flights can be a bit tricky – award seats are generally added to an airline's inventory either: 11-ish months out or at the last minute if a flight isn't selling well. That means the points game is best when you plan really far in advance or completely last-minute.In Jim's case, doing the spontaneous thing isn't going to work for him. He wants to go in spring of 2020 during cherry blossom season. There won't be many last-minute bargains or empty award seats during such a peak travel time. Once those award seats are added to the airline booking system, every day of delay means more of the seats have been snatched up by other travelers and your options start to dwindle.
TIP: Some airlines put restrictions on new accounts, so don't wait until the last minute to create your account with your desired airline!After creating his ANA account, he looked at a few sample travel dates on their website and there was quite a bit of availability. But then comes a big wrinkle: a Japanese friend who lives in New York wants to go with him. She doesn't have any points and isn't eligible to get a US credit card. Furthermore, she's on a tight budget and doesn't mind a 60-hour itinerary if it'll save her a couple hundred bucks.
He's a travel planning novice, so I let him know that while traveling with friends is awesome, coordinating group travel gets exponentially harder the more people are trying to go. Each new person on the itinerary brings the potential for unexpected family or work drama, their own preferences about airlines/hotels/destination, their own schedules and budgets, etc. It's difficult but do-able for two individual adults, but doing it for more than that is next to impossible.
I've found the easiest course of action is to just fly separately and generally agree on a date window. And honestly, by the end of a 14 day trip, you'll have seen enough of each other that a flight home solo might actually feel welcome.
Another thing that can paralyze group planning is everyone hemming and hawing on actual dates, so having a hard, unmovable event (like cherry blossom week, a destination wedding or holiday, etc) can greatly clarify and streamline planning. While ANA has a fairly friendly policy for changing award tickets, keep in mind that you still have to find an available award seat on any potential date you might change to.
One final thought on group travel: get your travel partners to put skin in the game ASAP (an IOU doesn't count!). It's amazing how many obstacles people are willing to overcome when they stand to lose a sizeable chunk of their own cash/points. There's a reason we use the phrase "getting buy-in".
Jim's travel partner tried to clear the cherry blossom dates with her boss and, long story short, she was told "No, July at the earliest", so he's proceeding with his original plan to fly there solo in March. (Japan is unpleasantly warm and humid in July).
Options…
Jim definitely wanted a day or so in Taipei on one end of his journey. Luckily ANA's booking engine allows you to do a multi-stop award itinerary with individual legs on Star Alliance partners like EVA. In Jim's case, that means he can fly direct to Taipei from New York, then onward directly to Japan, and then home from Tokyo on a direct flight out of Haneda. No unnecessary stopovers means more time on the ground maximizing those vacation days.Due to a government ruling, ANA's fuel surcharges are based on the price of jet fuel, and luckily they've come down a bit in recent months. While the trend lately with airlines has been to abandon the traditional reward pricing charts in favor of a dynamic points pricing scheme that's based on the current demand, that's not happened with ANA yet.
All told, Jim paid 60,000 points plus US$208 for his itinerary. While it was impossible to price this exact itinerary on Google Flights (it was showing $7000 in Economy!), a very similar one with a flight home on JAL from Haneda was US$1950. That works out to just shy of 3¢ per point – not bad for an Economy flight!
Comments
Post a Comment