Hi all This is following on from a quick conversation Craig and I had in the comments section of an article. My wife needs to go to Japan in February 2019 for a business conference, and I would like to get her there in a decent fashion. She has to self-fund the trip, although she can write the cost off against her business tax. My original thinking was to earn/buy Alaska miles and take advantage of the 85k redemption from Europe to Asia, but Craig pointed out that would only get her as far as HKG. We are well located for Stansted (and poorly located for Heathrow) so an ex-EU flight would work. We collect Avios, and the 2-4-1 voucher, but she will be travelling alone for this trip so the voucher is of no use. Any help and input would be very welcome!
So if I understand correctly your wife will be on a paid ticket and you are looking for an award. And you have almost one year to save miles ( on basically any program?).
Not quite, she will be travelling alone and she needs to fund the flight herself. She can look at either an award ticket or paid ticket, depending on what's best. She can also look at purchasing miles/points for a good value award ticket (e.g., SPG points and transfer to JAL).
One option to look at in the new Norwegian flight from Gatwick to Singapore, then use Avios to book a JAL redemption from Singapore up to Japan. Another is to check the Cathay and JAL route maps. Look for places with low taxes in Europe where you can easily fly to from Stansted, then plan on booking a redemption with JAL to your destination / redemption with Cathay via Hong Kong
If youve got that long to save the miles, Id just wait for a Qatar sale. Ex-EU you could probably pay about £1500. Plus, I expect it would be alot easier to convince the Inland Revenue its legit if its a straight up flight purchase rather than a purchase of online currency that eventually leads to a plane ticket..
Joe and I would probably "position" to India - LOL - and then book a 70K Alaska in First Class on JAL from India to the US, with a stopover as necessary in Tokyo. Then get home from the States somehow.
Singapore to Japan is a good 7-8 hour flight. Probably a bit too far out of the way and loads of Avios anyhow. But who knows what routes Norwegian will be adding in the next 12 months that might be closer to Japan... Iberia now fly to Tokyo from Madrid. It would be something like 110K Avios for a return in Business on off-peak, with lower surcharges. Positioning to the continent for a JAL reward using BA Avios is also a good idea, although it's always painful to pay peak date pricing when you are flying off-peak.
Thanks for the ideas! What would be the best way of going about booking an ex-EU redemption on JAL? Trying to search for availability on ba.com for AMS->NRT gives me a "Sorry, an error has occurred"...
You could always try ringing up at a quiet time, the agents on the phone seem to have a better system and are able to search multiple options fairly quickly
Well, first port of call is Wikipedia, to see where JAL flies to. (i.e. not AMS, but looks like CDG, FRA and HEL) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narita_International_Airport#Airlines_and_destinations Don't forget to check Haneda Airport as well. Although less relevant for JAL, you then might want to find a city pair that falls just below 5,500 miles, so you would pay less Avios. But you also want to choose somewhere that has award space and an easy positioning flight. Some of us think this is fun. Others just book BA and pay the surcharges and APD!
I'm finding it a lot of fun I nearly missed a train on Friday because I was trying to come up with a reasonable way of comparing SPG/Alaska miles with Avios.... #obsessed
Ah yes, that definitely sounds like you've crossed the Rubicon now! - there's really no way back from there.
