My First Trip to Japan

I visited Japan for the first time and didn’t eat any sushi! Well, I don’t particularly like to eat all the rice in sushi, but I love sashimi and I ate a lot of it.

I chose Japan during Cherry Blossom (sakura) season because my mom had this on her bucket list. We decided to visit Tokyo and Osaka, the two largest cities in Japan. Each place offers a unique flavor of culture, food and history, which we enjoyed experiencing.

Going to Japan during high season can be a little expensive. Luckily, I planned 8 months in advance to acquire the miles and points necessary to lessen our expenses.

Redeeming Miles & Points

The total value of this trip was approximately $3,000 per person for air and hotel only. Like our Round The World trip last summer, I would NEVER shell out that much cash for a vacation. I don’t have the money and I know many of you don’t either. I used miles to cover my mom’s flight, points to cover all hotels, and points as statement credits towards transportation. I didn’t use any points for booking activities as I didn’t see any I liked on Chase/Citi/AMEX Travel Portals, so that was something I had to budget.

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Total cost per person: $653.75.

How Did We Fly?

I booked my mom’s ticket using 50,000 American AAdvantage miles for travel on Hawaiian Airlines as they are partners. Although, as of March 2016, AA changed their award chart and new redemptions from Hawaii to Asia increased to 65,000, which is still better than booking on Hawaiian (Saver level is 80,000-120,000 roundtrip) . For more info on booking Hawaiian flights using AAdvantage miles, read my previous post Fly Hawaiian Airlines with American AAdvantage Miles.

For my ticket on Hawaiian, I decided not to redeem miles and, instead, pay in cash (and $200 in gift cards). I found a ticket just under $600, which was pretty good considering the average cost at that time was around $700-800. In addition, Hawaiian continues to award frequent flyer miles by distance (even when paying with gift cards), plus I have elite status (Pualani Gold) and would receive a 50% miles boost. Here’s the breakdown of miles I earned for this trip:

• one-way Honolulu-Tokyo: 3,850 miles

• one-way Osaka-Honolulu: 4,113 miles

• 50% miles boost: 3,982 miles

• Total miles earned: 11,945 miles

Where Did We Stay?

I prefer to stay in the city or near main attractions. More importantly, I prefer to use hotel points so choosing a hotel also depends on how many points we have in our hotel chain reward programs. I’ll go into more details on each hotel, but this is the list of hotels we stayed at:

• Grand Hyatt Tokyo

• Intercontinental Osaka

• ANA Crowne Plaza Osaka

How Did We Earn All Those Miles & Points?

Earning 450,000 miles and points takes some planning, but is worth it because I would not have been able to afford this trip otherwise. My mom and I did a combination of applying for credit cards (Citi AAdvantage, Chase Hyatt, and Chase IHG) and using our existing reward cards daily, including the Barclaycard Arrival+, to earn more rewards.

I was short a few thousand Hyatt points, and I did not want to spend $500 for one night (it’s high season after all and Grand Hyatt is a 5-star hotel), so I purchased points during Daily Getaways since the value of the points ($260) were far better than paying for one night ($500).

For more information on earning points, please read Getting Started with Miles & Points.

Cultural Tip

The most difficult concept to grasp is the Japanese aversion to gratuities – not at hotels, restaurants or anywhere for that matter. They take pride in providing the best hospitality and service everywhere without any expectation of receiving a tip. I actually like and prefer this to US culture where we tip everyone even if service is not up to par. I doubt this would work in the US, but that’s a discussion for another day.

The Final Word…

Japan was an awesome experience. I loved the food, culture, gardens, sakura, and overall the generosity and kindness of the people. The Japanese are super polite and take so much pride in hospitality, even without the expectation of a tip. I absolutely LOVE Japan and will return one day soon.

Stay tuned for my trip reports on Tokyo and Osaka…