I'm going to Japan in two weeks!

 ...but only for four hours. Talk about the ultimate tease 😭

I was searching on United.com for points flights to Sydney from New York in August and sorta inadvertently spotted a really good deal in late May flying on one of their Star Alliance partners. Considering that we already have a trip planned for mid-June to meet up in LA from our respective hometowns of NYC and Sydney, I thought, "What if I went out to Sydney early and then flew with Tim on his already-scheduled flight to LA?" 

The problem is that I don't have many United points. Nor do I have many Chase Sapphire points to transfer to United. I do, however, have quite a few Amex points, but they're not a transfer partner for United. The flight is actually operated by Amex partner ANA, but ANA doesn't let you do one-way points redemptions directly. I had some points "marooned" over at Air Canada, so I figured my best bet would be to top off that account with Amex points and book there. 

So I check Air Canada's website and sure enough, they had the same JFK-Tokyo Haneda-Sydney itinerary I'd seen on United.com for 105,000 points. In Business Class. And not just any old Business Class, this is in their new flagship Kengo Kuma-designed "The Room" Business Class! Well at least the long leg from New York is. The Sydney leg looks like it's in the old-but-still-nice product we flew in 2015. Furthermore, they only wanted US$69 as the co-pay. Booking with ANA would have had over $500 in fuel surcharges and fees. 

(Sidenote: I could have gotten a slightly better deal by booking ANA via Virgin Atlantic, but they require you to do all of the searching and booking process over the phone, whereas Air Canada can be entirely online. The hassle of that plus the 'bonus' of using up those marooned points really sealed the deal on Air Canada)

Given that Japan is still closed to tourists and likely will be for quite some time, this is going to be a bittersweet 4 hour layover. I mean, the whole reason I was searching for flights in the first place was to have a plan in place for an August visit to Tokyo and Aomori on the off chance that Japan opens their borders. There's truly nowhere else we'd rather travel to. 

So now I'm scouring the Haneda website trying to see which shops are open and if I can get a good Japanese meal while I'm there and find a few "only in Japan" things to bring to Tim (10 hours later) and to my hubby and friends in the states (2 weeks later). 

ANA's previous-gen lie flat seat