Well, friends, it looks like my 2020 trip to Japan may materialize after all. I’ve booked all of our award tickets, yay! Well, almost (more on that later). The itinerary has undergone many changes over the last six months. In fact, the last time I’ve mentioned this whole crazy idea, I was actually planning to add a three-night stop in Beijing, China. Not anymore.
There are several reasons for dropping China. The main one is that I felt we would be biting off more than I can “chew”. The longer I’ve researched Beijing, the more I thought it would be too much of a culture shock. I don’t mind squat toilets (I grew up with them), but my daughter does. Also, there are numerous warnings on how you can’t eat at food stalls, can’t drink the tap water and so on.
China is a place I absolutely intend to visit. Someday. Just not this time. I feel like Japan would be enough of a culture shock for my young kids. Instead, we are stopping in Oahu on our way to Japan and plan to spend four nights on the island. It’s a bit out of the way, but not terribly so. I simply couldn’t resist “swinging” by Hawaii.
Another reason is that my in-laws plan to come with us after all. My father-in-law almost died a few weeks ago. However, he is recovering from his surgery and will need a follow-up procedure in a few months. That will determine if they can indeed join us in Japan. Fingers crossed. We decided to roll the dice and book their award tickets now. Obviously, my sister-in-law plans to purchase travel insurance.
So, the final itinerary for my family will look like this:
- Fly to Oahu, with an overnight stop on the West coast. I used 50k Alaska miles+50k Merrill points for four one-way tickets.
- Spend four nights in Oahu.
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Fly to Osaka and transfer to Kyoto. I burned 100k Asia Miles on JAL flight from Honolulu to Osaka (25k miles per person). I also paid $240 in taxes and fuel surcharges.
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Spend three nights in Kyoto in a 110-year-old machiya house.
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Take a train to Hiroshima, and spend two nights in an onsen on a nearby island of Miyajima. This will be a getaway for just me and my husband because my in-laws plan to keep the kids until we meet up in Tokyo. As a side note, I highly recommend Japanese anime In this corner of the world that deals with life in Hiroshima prefecture before and after the atomic bomb. Stunning piece of art, and I’m not usually into anime.
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Fly to Tokyo and spend two nights in the city. I used 10k United miles on two one-way ANA tickets from Iwakuni airport to Tokyo Haneda.
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Fly to LAX and overnight there. I used 103k British Airways Avios on a flight from Tokyo to LAX, operated by American Airlines. There was no fuel surcharge, just a tax of $50 per person.
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Fly from LAX to Orlando. This one I’m still debating on, see the subheading at the end of the post.
Grand total:
263k miles and 50k Merrill points (so far). I also paid a total of around $485 in award fees, plus $245 to combine Alaska miles between accounts in order to book two award tickets from Orlando to Oahu. Of course, I also have lodging, tour and train costs I will have to cover. Bottom line: it’s a VERY expensive trip, but miles and points will make it significantly less so.
My in-laws’ itinerary:
They have decided against stopping in Hawaii, so we will meet them in Japan.
- They will fly from Orlando to Osaka, with a short layover in San Francisco. Personally, I think it’s insane to put my elderly in-laws through something like that, but my sister-in-law decided to do it that way. I was able to utilize my leftover Avianca miles for two of their tickets, and she used cash+miles option (1.55 cents per mile) to book the third seat. I did transfer some of my Membership Rewards points to top off the accounts (instant). The cost was 35k Avianca miles per person, plus $29 in fees. The process wasn’t too bad, but Avianca website gave me a mild heart attack by not showing award availability for the flights that just appeared few minutes prior. But all was well in the end. Avianca is just being Avianca, enough said.
- They plan to stay in Kobe for five nights and use it as a base to tour Kyoto as well as Hiroshima prefecture. This will minimize moving and potential stress that comes with it. They plan to meet us in Kyoto and Hiroshima and take the kids with them to Tokyo afterwards.
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After a two-night stay in Tokyo, we will all be flying to LAX together. That’s why I used my 77,250 Avios for their three tickets on the same AA flight.
All flights will be in coach, though we may pay extra for seats with additional legroom, so my elderly in-laws will be more comfortable.
It’s done!
This whole thing required a ton of planning, not to mention, a sizable stash of miles. I’ve spent sleepless nights thinking about the logistics and Plan B/C in case the award seats didn’t open up like I hoped they would. I was booking one leg at a time, so everything had to fit together like pieces in a puzzle.
But all award seats did open up and I was able to pull it off. Now, I didn’t get exactly what I wanted. For example, originally, I wanted to spend three nights on Oahu instead of four, but due to limited award availability, I had to add an extra night. Hey, another day in paradise? I ain’t complaining!
I also didn’t expect to use Alaska miles for our tickets to Hawaii, but that’s what ended up happening. So, things didn’t go exactly the way I’ve envisioned them, but pretty darn close. There is no question that redeeming miles requires work and tons of research. But to me the payoff is 100% worth it. I’m planning to write follow-up posts, breaking everything down in more detail. Feel free to hit me up with questions in the meantime.
The biggest variable at this point is my father-in-law’s health. We can book the most convenient first-class award tickets, but none of it will matter if his health deteriorates further. But he wants to go, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen.
Our plans are not tied to theirs, so if my in-laws cancel, we can still go as a family, assuming there is no emergency situation right before our flight. Another issue is surviving each other, and I’m not only talking about the trip itself. Just planning it has put a tremendous strain on me. Any time there is an issue between the two households, people (not naming any names) threaten to cancel. Come on! It’s a little late for that. We really are a dysfunctional bunch, but I still love my in-laws to death.
What to do with our flight from LAX to MCO?
This is the only leg I haven’t booked yet. I currently have our AAdvantage award tickets on free 5-day hold, and need to decide very soon. So, we are supposed to fly from LAX to Orlando on a weekend, and saver tickets are non-existent. I also insist on having a non-stop daytime flight, which complicates matters further. Long story short, the best rate I have found so far is 22k AAdvantage miles per person.
The idea of burning 22k miles one-way on a domestic economy flight that is not heading to Hawaii is downright painful. However, we will have two kids, two elderly persons, and one grumpy husband. I need to make it as simple as possible. I don’t want any connections and I don’t want us to fly at night. I also don’t want to pay cash. This flight will be at the tail end of an already exhausting trip, and my husband will have to resume his stressful job soon afterwards.
I could hold out and see if AAdvantage or another domestic program opens up saver-level seats in the future. But I doubt it will happen. Like I said, we have zero flexibility on dates, and I insist on having the simplest routing possible. Who knows, AAdvantage may raise the rate to 30k miles and I will be kicking myself for not booking it when it was 22k miles per person. I also have a $200 credit towards AA.com purchases through my Citi AAdvantage credit card, so this will reduce the price of one ticket.
That said, miles aren’t that easy to come by these days. Citi has just instituted a 48-month restriction on AAdvantage card bonuses, and most other banks don’t really want me as a customer. But I’m not super worried because the hardest part is booked. Getting to Japan via Hawaii and back on miles was my main concern. LAX to MCO is a piece of cake by comparison. But it’s looking to be a very expensive piece of cake.
Readers, what would you do in my situation?
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Author: Leana
Leana is the founder of Miles For Family. She enjoys beach vacations and visiting her family in Europe. Originally from Belarus, Leana resides in central Florida with her husband and two children.
Were you able to get seat assignments on your flights to and from Japan? I got all excited at seeing 60k Aadvantage miles for a one way business class ticket from NYC to Tokyo, but then after much reading realized that there would not be seat assignments on the JAL flight until we arrived at the airport for check-in. With kids, I really want seat assignments. This is why I really don’t like Southwest Airlines. I want to know where I’m sitting & I want to make sure it’s with my kids!
@Amy I’m not sure how AA handles JAL redemptions and assigned seating. I used Asia Miles for our JAL flight from Honolulu to Osaka. There was a JAL record locator in the confirmation email. So I went to JAL website (English section) and was able to find it there. It did allow me to select seats that way. Perhaps the same thing applies to AA redemptions on JAL flights. Anyhow, I imagine that calling JAL will solve the issue, especially if kids are involved. Let me know how it goes.
Wow your itinerary sounds awesome. We are tentatively planning a trip to Japan in summer 2022. It’s never too late to read up and start planning!
@Trina Thanks! I feel like I’m overdoing it, to be honest. Definitely not too early to start planning 2022 trip. I’ve been planning this thing for over 20 years, lol. We kept talking about visiting Japan, but I kept procrastinating. And then we had kids, so it was on a back burner ever since. But better late than never.
My main piece of advice is to invest in flexible currencies, specifically Ultimate Rewards and Membership Rewards. And even Citi program would come in handy. But honestly, even if you collect random mileage currencies, chances are, you can utilize them. Just take note of hard expiration rules.
Congrats, sounds like an awesome trip. The accommodations sound great!
Currently traveling with my family of 5 (kids 5, 7, and 9). We were in Japan for 10 nights (Tokyo 4, Kyoto 4, Osaka 2) now in South Korea, and will hit Hawaii and California with a trip through Yosemite on the way back home.
A few notes:
For you, reading your blog, skipping Beijing was the right choice, don’t double think it. We did the free 72 hour transit visa three years ago with the kids as well as visiting Japan, and…we decided to travel back to Japan. China and Japan couldn’t be any more different, and you’re definitely taking the less challenging path. I’m sure someone will chime in and say how they love seeing the sun barely shine through the smog in Beijing, but…no one can say it is similar to Japan.
Transferring from Osaka to Kyoto you can buy a JR west pass for ~$22 adult half for kids to make the journey and take the express (not bullet) train which would normally cost more just for the ticket, the pass will work for other transfers on JR lines once in Kyoto. You can just walk up to the ticket counter and buy JR passes whenever you want (as of this writing). There is a very slight discount for multiple days, but if you are unsure of tour plans, just buy a day at a time if you don’t mind a short wait in line at a major station. Also, I’ve found airport transfers are the things that just kill us on trips, Osaka’s airport is out on a man made island far away from anything that you’d be visiting otherwise. Yesterday, for our hour and a half flight out of Osaka, we had to add the hour express train ride from Osaka, then an hour transit here once we arrived—it all adds up.
Use google maps to look up transit directions between your cities and it will give accurate travel times, and most importantly platform numbers for the specific train that you are taking! Using Kobe as a base for exploring other cities seems like you might have more train travel planned than you think, depending upon the specific sites you want to see.
This year on our trip we finally dropped strollers and naps, and we definitely overdid it. I would recommend doing a better job at planning than I did! We clocked around 5 miles walking several days, and it was just too much. I would have booked more hotels directly at the main train stations. Also we’ve scaled things back and are using more cabs to get us point to point and everyone is much happier.
@Tyler Wow, you are way more ambitious than I would have been with three kids of that age. You even added Yosemite on the way back. That’s amazing!
I was really agonizing on adding China. I’m not certain we will ever make it to Asia again. We tend to mostly focus on Europe since my family lives there. I really hope to visit China beyond Beijing. I’ve heard that pollution in the Capital isn’t as bad as it used to be. Still, my kids have bad allergies, so this is something I needed to take into consideration. So, Japan and Hawaii it is!
Thank you so much for all of your tips. Keep them coming. To be honest, I’m probably going to book a shared airport shuttle taxi to Kyoto. It’s expensive, but I just don’t want to deal with trains upon arrival. I’m cheap, but have to remind myself that using miles has cut our expenses significantly. So why not splurge to make things easier?
My in-laws will be staying in Crowne Plaza Kobe, located right beside Shinkansen station. It seems like a good option for getting around in the region. We have to keep things as simple as possible for them.
I just had to plan a stay in a real Kyoto machiya. The cost wasn’t too bad, and it’s a unique experience I can’t get anywhere else. I’m paying cash for an onsen stay as well. The only place where we are using points is Hyatt Regency Tokyo because it seemed to make the most sense for what we plan to do. I also decided against using hotel points in Oahu. Waikiki holds zero appeal to me, so I’m reluctantly parting cash…. again. As much as I love hotel points, they aren’t always the answer. I figure I can put them good use during a road trip through Yosemite and Grand Canyon in a few years. Let me know how you like Yosemite!
Yay for getting this booked! If you have the AA miles, I personally would book those desirable LA to MCO flights at the 22k price. A few years ago I booked some flights on AA from Vancouver to Dallas for 20k each and I debated it for awhile, but they were at exactly the right time and nonstop. They never did get any cheaper, I checked. 🙂
@Nancy I definitely would have an easier time swallowing 20k miles rate to Vancouver! I do agree that getting convenient flights is important when you travel with kids.
That said, someday I may kick myself for burning AA miles for this route. I’m currently looking at Delta award flights. There is one that gets in at 10:50 PM, non-stop. It’s not ideal, but the rate is 15k miles per person.
As frustrating as AA miles are, I prefer them to Delta, but that has more to do with my location that is relatively close to Miami. AA also seems to have more options for flying to Yosemite, which is on my list of places to visit in a near future. Ugh, I think I’m talking myself into using Delta miles. My husband will not be a happy camper. 🙂
The most complicated trip I’ve booked for seven is CLT-MGA with a stop in MIA. Hats off to you for pulling this off!
@Nick Thanks. Hey, any trip with small kids is complicated!
Leana, the love you have for your in-laws is incredibly beautiful. I wish I could have done this for my parents while I still had the chance to. I am sure this is going to be an AMAZING trip that you guys will hold dear to your hearts forever (even if you sometimes have to *survive* each other haha). I can’t wait to read everything about it!!!
@Army Thank you so much! And my condolences on losing your parents. I think as we get older, we tend to regret the paths not taken more than the things we’ve actually done. Hindsight is 20/20, so don’t beat yourself up for not taking more trips with your parents. I’m sure they knew how much you loved them, and that’s the most important thing.
As far as my in-laws go, they are easy people to love! They have put up with so much crap from me over the years, I can’t even tell you. I honestly view them as my second set of parents at this point.