[04/20/2023 @ 12:56 PM CT] Book this fare on: American Airlines.
Deals are usually valid 24 to 72 hours after posting, but can expire at any time (see time-stamp).
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American, Alaska Airlines, and JAL have one-way Business class flights from San Antonio (SAT) to Tokyo (HND/NRT) for 60,000 points + $5.60 tax/fees with a connection. Fare allows for carry-on bag and seat selection. Most outbound departures are between Apr 21st and May 3rd. Very limited availability, two or three seats per date.
Booking flights with miles/points is worthwhile when the cost of airfare is high.
When searching for your flight, use the fare calendar on American’s website and filter by Business class, then sort the fares by lowest cost.
Inbound arrivals will need to be vaccinated and boosted to avoid needing a pre-arrival negative result for a Covid-19 test, according to [per Kyodo News].
The Yen is currently trading below 133 yen per dollar. In some cases, goods and services in Japan may be about 33% cheaper if you’re converting USD to Yen.
For your return flight you have a few options. There are a few business class return flights for the same point cost on but some of these have a connection or mixed cabin, so be sure to read the fare details on those. There are also a multitude of regular economy return flights for about 35,000 points + tax/fees.
Here are some other offers that we think are worth mentioning. List updated 12/20/2024.
We now list coupon codes, discount codes, gift card discounts, and credit card offers that have a better value than their historical averages.
- Airfare/Hotel coupons on Hopper: (updated daily-ish) Hopper always has discount coupons on their main page. The full list is on Hopper’s website. Keep in mind that Hopper is an OTA, so don’t expect them to honor the free 24-hour cancellation period, or to have the lowest base fare price. Hopper will try to up-sell you on a lot of extras like “cancel for any reason” policies, if you decide to use Hopper we advise that you decline all of those extras.
- It is common to find Southwest and Alaska Airlines gift-cards for sale at a discount of about -$70 to -$20 off the redeemable value at Costco and Sam’s Club. Before you finalize your booking on either of these airlines, you should check to see if you can save more money by using a gift card.
Book this fare on: American Airlines. These screenshots were taken at the time this post was created. See timestamps at the top of the post.
When you are ready to book your flight or hotel, please use the links on our site to begin your booking process so we receive credit for the referral.
- Tips: Rent a car for cheaper by using Priceline’s “Express Deals”. The rental car company will be hidden until after you purchase, but this allows those companies to undercut the published rate indirectly. You can remove low quality companies from those hidden results. The trick is to use the quality filter on their website to remove any rental car company with a review rating under 7.0 and then pick the deals that survive the filter. Note that the quality filter is only available on the desktop/web version of the Priceline website and isn’t available on the mobile version.
- Tips: Use Tripadvisor to create a Hotel “short list”. First, plug in your dates and destination. Then select “Sort by Traveler Ranked”. Finally, select the “Traveler Ranking” filter to show “only 4* and up”. Use this resulting “short list” of hotels to find the cheapest one with a high ranking.
- Tips: The Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card allows for 1-to-1 point transfers to several airline loyalty programs. Booking with points is a good alternative to paying with cash when the price of airfare is high. Here is the current list of Chase Sapphire transfer partners: United, Southwest, jetBlue, British Airways, Iberia, Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Air France, KLM, Virgin Atlantic, Aer Lingus, and Air Canada.
- Tips: Vacation rentals on Vrbo are usually cheaper per night for longer stays than shorter stays. This is due to three main factors; The first is that most properties have a cleaning fee that is a fixed rate, the second is that many hosts provide discounts for stays longer than 6-days, the third is that the Vrbo service fee percentage is higher on short stays.
- Tips: You can (and should) sort the Vrbo vacation rental search results by “Total” price. Doing so exposes properties with high fees. For example, a $140 per-night property with $100 fees will rank as being more expensive than a $150 per-night property with $30 fees, when sorted. Sorting by “most reviews” is also a good option, as this will show you the most popular properties.
- Tips: Hotel rates for Weekend dates are usually higher than the rates for Sunday through Thursday. Tripadvisor has a color-coded date calendar, red when the average hotel price for that day is more expensive, green for less expensive. You can use this to get an overview of what dates in the month are at a discount.
- Tips: Different booking websites will often have differing routes, prices, and availability. Before you finalize your purchase, do a quick check on BookingBuddy, Skyscanner, and Kayak to see if any other site or airline is offering a better deal.
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