Uncertainty with the School Calendar Has Put Our Japan Award Trip in Limbo

Those of you with kids in public school know that it adds an extra layer of complexity. Not only do you have to find multiple award seats, but you have to do it during peak season when other families are traveling too. It is what it is, and you have to make the best of things. For us it usually means settling for economy, especially since I try to incorporate weekends. At least our school board publishes the school calendar a year in advance, so you can have specific dates to work with. Yeah, about that…

My daughter will be graduating from high school next May. In fact, she should be getting her associate degree from college around the same time. Anyway, she requested that me and my husband  take her to Japan as a graduation present, and we agreed. After all, she has worked so hard, even taking college classes this summer.

I’ve recently shared a post on redeeming miles and hotel points in order to minimize our out-of-pocket costs.  Japan is super popular right now, and competition is fierce. So, naturally, I was happy to at least have something in place, even though I’m hoping to snag JAL premium economy seats within three weeks of our departure.

Changing graduation ceremony date

One thing my daughter really wants to do is attend her graduation ceremony. Fair enough, that’s why I planned to leave for Japan right after it commences. Well, technically, it would be a positioning flight to the west coast, but still. Graduation ceremonies in our county always take place in the morning, but just to be sure, I called the venue. To my surprise and horror, the lady in charge of the building said the event has been moved to the following weekend. What the what?!

Here is the deal. Not only did we book the whole Japan trip based on the original date, but we also reserved a venue for graduation party and booked flights to Michigan for my MIL and our son. Everything would have to be changed and rebooked. I called the school board asking for clarification and they knew nothing about it. I finally got the name of the high school teacher planning the ceremony and was able to talk to her yesterday.

She told me no decision has been made, but it’s likely that they will keep the original date after all. She hasn’t given me a timeline on when they will have a firm date. I have no idea why they reserved that building for the following weekend if they don’t intend to keep it, maybe they are shopping around. But the bottom line is, I can’t cancel any of my original bookings until I know for sure.

One thing I did do is move the graduation party to the following month, just to be on a safe side. I suppose I could do it with flights as well, but I would rather not go to Japan in the middle of June. It gets pretty hot and you have a higher chance of being affected by typhoons. Fortunately, everything we booked so far is 100% refundable, including tickets  to Michigan. So, at least we won’t lose anything. But getting new award seats will likely be challenging, to say the least.

Hedging my bets

As you can imagine, this is a super frustrating situation, especially since I don’t have any clue when the final date will be approved. Things in our county seem to happen on an island time, even though we don’t actually live on an island. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to have clarity less than 10 months in advance, but I imagine it’s not an issue for most parents in our city.

Normal folks don’t plan trips that far ahead, and JAL award availability is not something they are concerned with. At all. I have to remind myself that we will make it work regardless, even if we have to use flexible points on revenue tickets. In the meantime, I did use AAdvantage miles to book our return award flight from Osaka to Sarasota on the alternate date, with an overnight in LAX. I paid 35k AA miles total per person in economy, a pretty spectacular deal. I don’t like making a bunch of speculative reservations, as it needlessly ties up award inventory. However, it makes me feel better to have at least one leg secured.

For flights to Japan I don’t really have enough miles without canceling the tickets I already have, and I’m obviously not going to do that. Plus, I’ve discovered that the rate from Seattle to Tokyo has gone up considerably via Hawaiian and Alaska programs. I paid a bit over 34k miles per person, and most dates in May now cost 48k-60k miles. If I have to switch, I’ll probably grab those as a placeholder. But in all likelihood, I’ll just end up switching to revenue flight from LAX on Zipair unless I find something in JAL premium economy.

The importance of flexibility that mileage awards provide for families can not be overstated. This situation has reminded me yet again of just how valuable it is.