I got a $20,000 first-class flight from New York to Japan for just $257
- This winter, my wife and I used credit-card points to fly in first class to Japan on All Nippon Airways, or ANA, a Japanese carrier.
- In-air suites, comfortable chairs that turned into lie-flat beds, top-shelf Champagne and whiskey, and unbelievable Japanese food were just a few of the highlights.
- Using cards like the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card and thePlatinum Card from American Express, it cost us surprisingly few points, plus about $250 in taxes and fees.
I love to travel, and I love to do it using points or frequent-flyer miles — probably a given, since I'm Business Insider's senior travel and credit-card reporter.
One thing I — and presumably everyone else on the planet — don't like is spending 10 to 20 hours in a cramped economy seat on an airplane.
Don't get me wrong: I'm willing to do it without a second thought if it means getting to travel somewhere like Asia, Africa, Australia, southern South America, or parts of Europe. I fly in coach on most of my trips, because it's absolutely worth it in order to see somewhere new or different, or to take advantage of work opportunities. But there's no questioning that it's rough and that it might take some time to recover from the journey.
The ideal way to travel is in business class (where you can enjoy better food and service, but more importantly, room to stretch out) or first class (where meals, amenities, and service are a full experience to go alongside plenty of personal space and privacy).
One card I used for my first-class flight was the Platinum Card from American Express. Learn more about it from The Points Guy »
The problem: Those premium cabins are expensive. Long-haul business-class flights can cost thousands of dollars, while seats in first class can eclipse $20,000. With economy flights to anywhere in the world usually staying below $2,000 and often available for less than half of that, it can be hard to justify the expense of a premium cabin unless your workplace is paying or you have a tremendous amount of disposable income.
But using credit-card points and frequent-flyer miles makes flying in a premium cabin suddenly affordable for anyone.
The easiest way to use points and miles for a vacation: plan destinations and dates around flights, not the other way around
You can book through your credit card's travel website, though this usually takes a huge number of points. A better option is to transfer your points to an airline's frequent-flyer program, basically turning them into miles. Because of the way these programs work, you can usually get a lot more value from a lot fewer miles than you can with credit-card points.
That's how my wife and I recently snagged two round-trip, first-class tickets to Japan, as part of a larger Asian trip connecting to South Korea and Thailand.
Using miles to book tickets in a premium cabin can be tricky, but it's certainly doable with a bit of planning, effort, and flexibility. If you're looking for specific dates or, preferably, a specific period, with a couple of days of flexibility on either end, your best chance is to start searching as far in advance as possible and be ready to book tickets as soon as they open up. ExpertFlyer can be helpful for this but isn't mandatory.
The more ideal situation if you have a relatively flexible schedule and aren't traveling for a specific event, such as a wedding, is to build up points and miles and plan trips around available flights you can book with them.
That's what we did in this case. All Nippon Airways, or ANA, a Japanese airline, opened up a ton of first- and business-class availability between the US and Asia all at once for the coming year. I found out about it thanks to a Twitter alert and booked a round trip from New York to Tokyo with a two-week stay. Then we planned from there.
As you build up a stock of credit-card points and frequent-flyer miles, an excellent way to find out when an airline opens up a ton of award space — and how to book it with whatever points or miles you have — is to sign up for Straight to the Points' "Award Alerts" email newsletter.
This helpful newsletter is sent periodically as airlines open up large blocks of award space — one to five times a month, on average — and lists all the different points and miles you can use to book the flights. When you get an alert, take a look at the ways you can book the flight, see if the dates and destinations work for a vacation, and enjoy your ride in some of the world's best first- and business-class offerings.
How I booked Japan
Last spring, before Straight to the Points launched its newsletter, I saw either a blog post or a Twitter tip — I can't quite remember — saying there was a ton of first- and business-class availability on ANA between US cities and Tokyo.
My wife and I had been to Japan for our honeymoon the year before and wanted to explore somewhere new, but we had been talking vaguely about taking a vacation somewhere in Asia early the following year. We didn't have any firm thoughts or plans, but we decided to book the round trip to Tokyo and figure out the rest from there. We chose flights that gave us a two-week stay. With 14 hours in one direction and 11 in the other, it seemed like a fantastic time to splurge on first class.
Sometimes it costs fewer points to book a ticket using miles from an airline's partner than from the airline itself. That's the case with ANA, at least for flights between the US and Asia.
ANA is part of the Star Alliance network, meaning it partners with airlines like United and Air Canada. However, it also has non-alliance partnerships, including with Virgin Atlantic, an independent airline.
You can book round-trip tickets only if you use Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles on partner airlines, but Virgin's partner-award chart is incredibly generous, meaning you don't need too many miles to book.
Round-trip flights between the western US and Japan in business class are just 90,000 miles, while in first class it's only 110,000 miles; from the eastern US it's 95,000 miles and 120,000 miles. There are also taxes and fees, which top out at about $250.
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is a transfer partner of the three major transferable credit-card rewards programs: AmEx Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, and Citi ThankYou Rewards.
One of the cards I've used with Chase Ultimate Rewards is the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card, which is offering its highest-ever sign-up bonus.
When I found out about the availability, I used United's website to search for ANA flights — Virgin's website doesn't have access to ANA's flights, meaning you need to find availability somewhere else, then call Virgin to book. I simply entered "NYC" as my departure city and "TYO" as my destination, clicked "book with miles" and "calendar shop," selected two adults, first class, and the month I wanted to look at. Then I played around with results until I found dates that showed ANA flights bookable with miles.
When we decided to book the flights, I called Virgin Atlantic's Flying Club reservations number and waited on hold for about 20 minutes. When I got through, I told the call agent exactly which flights I wanted, confirmed they were available, and asked her to hold the reservation, which Virgin allows for 24 hours. Then I logged in to my Chase account and transferred the necessary points to Virgin, called back, and confirmed the reservation.
I also could have used my AmEx points — AmEx occasionally runs transfer bonuses to Virgin but wasn't at the time — but since my wife and I had an abundance of Chase points at the time, it seemed more practical to use those.
I got my Chase points using cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve. Learn more from The Points Guy »
In the end, each of our round-trip first-class tickets cost 120,000 points, transferred to Virgin Atlantic, and $256.71 in taxes and fees. The advertised cash price for each ticket was $20,787. That means we got an excellent $0.0585 worth of value for each point used, way more than the $0.015 we could have gotten if we used points to book travel through Chase.
We earned the points by optimizing the rewards we earn on spending by using the right card, and by opening new cards to earn sign-up or welcome bonuses. I try to keep a healthy stock of points on hand for opportunities like this, and I've found it to be one of the best ways to use them.
No comments:
Post a Comment