Which Flight To Japan Would You Have Booked?

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It’s happened. With 2020 in the rear view and the hope of pulling out of the darkness rising, it’s once again time for Sharon and me to look at long-term travel plans. For the first part of the year, we’re still taking things as they come. We’ve already canceled one trip and replaced it with a more socially-distanced alternative. If things take longer to improve, we still could take trips to the beach or a cabin to fulfill our desire to travel.

However, bigger trips require longer term planning if you want to get flights or hotels that you want. We’re hopefully only 10 months from our postponed trip to Japan. That is, if travel has gotten back to a sense of normal by the end of 2021. I already missed out on flying in Japan Airlines first class by hesitating when booking the flight.  That was for our flight to Japan, which we’re still flying JAL business, so I’m happy with how we’re getting there.

During our trip, we’re traveling from Tokyo to Osaka. Flying home, I looked for flights from one of the Osaka area airports (ITM or KIX). Fortunately, there were several options available. Unfortunately, I’m terrible at making decisions.

FWIW, I already made my choice and booked a flight before it disappeared. I’m just hoping I chose wisely.

Here were my options. I had enough points to book any of these flights.

• Japan Airlines Business Class KIX-LAX 787-900 – 60,000 American Aadvantage Miles
• Asiana Business Class KIX-ICN-LAX A380-900 – 88,000 United MileagePlus Miles
• ANA Business Class ITM-NRT-LAX 777-300ER – 88,000 United MileagePlus Miles
• ANA First Class – ITM-NRT-SFO – 777-300ER – 121,000 United MileagePlus Miles
• Korean Air – KIX-ICN-LAX-MCO – 777-300ER – 102,500 Delta Skymiles

I know there are cheaper ways to book the ANA and Asiana tickets with other points currencies, but I have 80K points stuck in MileagePlus from our canceled trip from 2020 that I need to find a use for besides flying with United.

Here are the pros/cons of each choice.

Japan Airlines

Pros

• Direct Flight – There are very few direct flights from Osaka to the U.S. This route previously only featured angle-flat seats but has been upgraded to a lie-flat product. The oddity is that JAL installed a totally different seat on this aircraft in business class called the Sky Suite III.
• Price – American only charges 60,000 miles for business class to Asia one-way, which is the cheapest award available.

Cons

• While you can add a domestic connecting flight for no extra cost, the non-stop American flight to Orlando wasn’t a choice for our dates. We’d have to pay the costs of the positioning flight ourselves.
• We’re already flying with JAL to Japan, so we wouldn’t be able to check out a different airline.

Asiana Airlines

Pros

• We’d be able to use up our United miles.
• We’d get to try a new airline.
• I love flying on the A380.

Cons

• Asiana business class seats don’t have the best configuration.
• Added travel time because of backtracking to Seoul
• Transit through an additional country
• Need to pay for a ticket home from LAX

ANA Business Class

Pros

• We’d be able to use up our United miles.
• Better flight times with a connection in Tokyo

Cons

• We wouldn’t be in ANA’s newest business class.
• ANA domestic flight to Tokyo in economy class

ANA First Class

Pros

• Krug and caviar
• Fully enclosed suite
• Dine on demand
• Revisit our only other first-class experience from a decade ago
• It’s freakin’ first-class, do there have to any more pros???

Cons

• 33K additional MileagePlus miles per ticket
• Less favorable connections from SFO than LAX, so we’d have to connect to get to MCO

Korean Air Business Class

Pros

• I was able to find award space on Korean Air using Skymiles
• I have more Membership Rewards than other transferrable currencies
• Award tickets available for the entire itinerary

Cons

• Added travel time because of backtracking to Seoul
• Most expensive business class redemption
• We’d have to pay to transfer AMEX points to Delta

Final Thoughts

Maybe you’re having as hard of a time picking from one of these options as I did. On the other hand, maybe one of these options stood out as a no-brainer. I’d love to hear what you would have booked if given the same options. What if you didn’t have miles stuck because of canceled flights? Would that have changed your decision? Spoiler alert (It did influence what flight I booked.)

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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary