Flying to Japan with Points {Guide}

Flying to Japan is one of the most common goals I hear (neck and neck with Hawaii and Europe). There are so many options for airlines, points, and alliances — and taxes and fees vary greatly. Use this guide to help you figure out which strategy works best for you.

Thanks to Hannah Smith from The Girl From Maine for contributions to this article.

Find the Best Routes

It’s important to take into consideration the flight routes from your home airport, as it influences which strategy and sweet spots make the most sense for you to focus on. We almost always prioritize non-stop flights and that influences how we plan our trips and destinations.

Check non-stop routes from your home airport

Your first step is to head to FlightConnections.com and enter your home airport in the “From” box. It will then populate all the non-stop routes you can take from your home airport. You can click on different cities to find out which airlines fly that route and how frequently they fly it.

If your home airport has a nonstop flight to Japan — that’s a great way to focus on your strategy and begin to work out the cheapest way to book that route with points. Make a note of the airline that has that non-stop. You’ll also need to note what airline alliance they are a part of.

Smaller airport strategies

What if your home airport doesn’t have any non-stop flights to Japan? If I can’t get somewhere non-stop, I try to do it with just one connecting flight. To see the best options, I run a search on Google Flights to see some routing possibilities.

If possible, it is preferable to book your flights all on the same ticket. This can still be possible if you’re booking through American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta, and other airlines. Sometimes it even costs the same to book with that extra leg as it would just to book the trans-Pacific flight to Japan.

If you find a few routings that seem like they could work for you, make a note of the airlines that fly them and the alliances the airlines are in.

Repositioning

Sometimes you can find a better routing for yourself by booking two flights separately from each other.

Repositioning is a strategy of booking two separate tickets. The first one will be to fly yourself somewhere that has a non-stop to Japan. Then you’ll still need to book the flight to Japan.

With repositioning you are usally booking on two different airlines and your ticket reservations are separate.

In the miles and points world, a lot of people use Southwest Airlines (With a companion pass) to reposition.

Make sure you’re adding up your total cost if you choose to reposition! I also highly suggest booking yourself an overnight layover to account for delays. Of course you could book that overnight layover in a hotel you pay for with points. But keep in mind the overall cost to yourself.

There are some risks with repositioning: if your first flight gets canceled or delayed, you may miss your connection and if they were on different airlines — the airlines don’t always work together to get you to your final destination.

Price Compare with Google Flights

Before I discuss too many of the details of booking with miles and points, I want to emphasize you should always check prices on Google Flights!

Many of the options to use airline miles to Japan cost 70,000-90,000 points plus taxes and fees.

But when prices to Japan drop, it can be much more advantageous to book other ways!

Take this fare which I just pulled up from LAX to Tokyo on ANA, which is one of the top airline experiences to Japan.

This round trip costs just $720.

If this route was available to book with points, the cheapest way to book would be either using ANA miles (transferred from Amex) for 55,000 points + $446. Or else to transfer other credit card points to Air Canada Aeroplan or Avianca Lifemiles for 90,000 points + $100ish in taxes.

But I could book through bank portals for a lot less and have my taxes and fees incorporated into the price.

My top choice would be booking through Chase Travel. In this case, I’d recommend upgrading to the Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card because anytime you are going to redeem more than 60,000 points in the Chase Travel portal, you will come out ahead by upgrading due to the higher redemption rate.

You’d pay just 48,000 points round trip for this flight and nothing extra in taxes!

Just note that booking through a travel portal is booking through a third party and any changes need to be made via Chase Travel. We frequently have used this and while wait times can be long on the phone for changes, they can also be quite long with airlines directly.

You’ll also earn airline miles on this reservation if you add your account to the reservation.

Another alternative would be to book via Capital One Travel and then use the purchase eraser to erase the cost in points. You’d need 72,000 points for this ticket. You’d also earn 5x points for this purchase–so you’d earn another 3600 points.

Check Aircraft Information

I’m not an aviation geek and never pay much attention to seat maps or stats like seat pitch or seat width. That came back to haunt me on our flight to Japan in November 2023. We had always previously flown Asian airlines to Asia (Asiana, ANA, JAL, EVA Airway) and I really underestimated how much worse United was.

Besides the abysmal food, the seats on United felt so small and tight to me and when I got home, I realized why. They truly were

In economy, United seats were 16.3-17″ wide and had a 31″ seat pitch.

In contrast, JAL has seats that are 19″ wide with a 34″ seat pitch in economy!

The JAL seats are essentially the same as United Premium Economy.

Aircraft can vary on route but I highly suggest you prioritize Asian airlines and avoid United if you can.

Leverage Transfer and Alliance Partners

Alliance and transfer partners are an all-important aspect of getting more options and better deals on your flights!

I cover both of these in depth in my free course. I also have a free guide which you can download to begin to understand. The most important overall concepts you need to understand are:

• • Airlines operate in partnerships with other airlines. These partnerships allow you to use your miles from one airline to book on another — but only when airlines open seats to their partners.

• • Flexible points credit cards (like Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card, Capital One Venture X and Citi Premier® Card) allow you to transfer your points and miles to a variety of airlines

• • “Sweet spots” are those intersections of transfer partners and alliance partners that offer great value

Earn More Points

Each airline option I list in this article has more than one credit card that can earn you a welcome bonus and the points you need to fly to Japan. This article is already long enough without listing out every single card you could get for each of these programs to earn points.

So how can you figure out how to earn the right points? First step: get my free airline transfer partner guide — inside I have a chart that shows which kinds of points transfer to which airlines.

Then work backwards!

Let’s say you figure out that you want to fly on Delta but you want to book via Virgin Atlantic (this article explains exactly how to do that). You can look at the chart in my guide and see that American Express Membership Rewards®, Chase Ultimate Rewards®, Capital One miles, and Citi ThankYou® Points all transfer 1:1 to Virgin. Then you could browse my Best Offers page, where I list all my favorite current offers–to see which cards currently have good bonuses and earn those kinds of points.

Pro Tip: Transfer Bonuses

Most points transfer 1:1 when you transfer from a program like Chase Ultimate Rewards® to an airline or hotel. But! Banks run promos throughout the year and certain transfers may offer a bonus. I don’t currently maintain an updated list of transfer bonuses but you can find one here.

Sample Strategies For a Family

For a family of four flying to Japan, here are three strong card strategies you could use to earn enough points. Keep in mind that you can use one airline alliance one direction and a different one on the return.

And don’t forget that booking via a travel portal is still a strong option. It’s not uncommon for flights to Japan to be in the $700-$1000 range.

• For JAL or American Airlines: Focus on earning American Airlines miles. American Airlines miles are relatively easy to earn via credit card bonuses because both Citi and Barclay issue them. You’d need 280,000 AA miles for 4 people to fly round trip from the US to Japan. How can you get that? Earn the following sign up bonuses (these were current as of January 2024)
  1. AAdvantage^® Aviator^® Mastercard 75,000 miles- Each parent can get 1 of these. That’s already 150,000 miles! {see this offer on my Best Offers page, it’s only available via personal referral}
  2. CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard® – 65,000 miles – Each parent can get one of these. That’s another 150,000 miles! Alternatively you could get the personal version of this card.

• For ANA or United: Stockpile flexible points that transfer to Star Alliance partners Avianca or Aeroplan. Round trip pricing is 94,000-100,000 round trip but 15% or more transfer bonuses are common with both airlines. You’ll need about 400,000 points saved up.
  1. Open cards that earn Chase Ultimate Rewards® (these transfer to Aeroplan) A great option are the Chase Ink family of cards.
  2. Open cards that earn Capital One miles (these transfer to Avianca). One of my favorites for luxe perks is the Capital One Venture X (earn 75,000 miles) AND you can also earn 75,000 miles with the $95 fee Capital One Venture card.
  3. If a household opened 2 Ink cards and 2 Venture X cards, you’d have 406,000 miles after completing the spend and referring each other to the second card.
  4. Look for great American Express offers as well as consider a Citi Premier® card.

• For Delta: Stockpile flexible points that transfer to Flying Blue. Note you will have to be flexible with your dates because while Delta does regularly release seats to partners, it isn’t always predictable when they will. If you fly from Seattle, you will need 67,000 points per person or 268,000 for a family of 4. Flying from MSP would cost 332,000 points.
  1. Open cards that earn Chase Ultimate Rewards®. A great option are the Chase Ink family of cards.
  2. Open cards that earn Capital One miles (these transfer to Virgin Red and can then be moved to Virgin Atlantic). One of my favorites for perks is the Capital One Venture X (earn 75,000 miles) but you can also earn 75,000 miles with a $95 fee Capital One Venture card.
  3. Also look for great American Express offers as well as considering a Citi Premier® card.

Finding Availability {Tips}

A decade ago, almost all airlines priced their award flights according to an award chart. That meant you could go to a chart and see that it would cost 60,000 miles to fly from the U.S. to Europe, for instance. When airlines price using award charts, they generally offer a limited number of “award seats” per flight. So just because a flight exists didn’t mean it was available to book with airline miles.

More and more airlines are switching to “dynamic pricing.” This generally means that they allow almost all of their flights to be booked with their airline miles. It also means they change those prices up and down according to supply and demand. The price of a ticket in airline miles can vary from day to day, just like the prices do when you pay with cash.

Most of the best deals still come with airlines that use some sort of award chart — but this in turn will lead to more searching for available award seats.

Generally speaking, the earlier you book, the better chance you have to find an award seat but this isn’t always true.

In addition, it is important to underline that airlines only release some of their seats to their partners. With United and American, they tend to release any “saver” level seats to their partners. Delta, on the other hand, has no official “saver” awards and the ones they release to partners do not match their cheapest flights.

Tools for Award Flight Searches

When possible, I tried to note each sweet spot if there was an easy way to search for it. If you already have a lot of points, specific dates, and destinations — you can use a tool like Point.Me or AwardLogic.Com to search flights from your home airport to your desired destination and filter by the kinds of points you have.

I personally prefer using searches that show me 30 days of availability at a time because I’m generally somewhat flexible on my dates and destinations.

SeatSpy is a very user friendly tool for searching 365 days at a time — and it’s free for economy searches!

United.com is a great way to find 30 day Star Alliance availability. AA.com has 30 day functionality for oneworld availability. Delta has a 7 day flexible calendar for its own flights. For searching for Delta flights that are bookable by partners Virgin Atlantic or Flying Blue, you can use this trick.

Sweet Spots, By Destination

If you live at an airport that has a non-stop flight to Japan, start with that. (Did you look it up on Flightconnections.com?)

Then find what alliance that airline is in and then jump down the page to the strategies for that alliance.

Here are a few examples:

From Seattle – your cheapest option is the non-stop flights on Delta. But don’t book on Delta! Book on Flying Blue. This is available at 67,000 points + $54 round trip. Sometimes it is even cheaper when banks have transfer bonuses to Flying Blue.

From LAX – You have a lot of options. Don’t forget to check Singapore Airlines as it operates a Fifth Freedom route nonstop to Tokyo. American Airlines sometimes has unannounced sales, I have seen as low as 46,000 points round trip!

From Minneapolis – your cheapest option is the non-stop flight on Delta. But don’t book on Delta! Book on Flying Blue.

Star Alliance

Overall, I think the best way to book on a Star Alliance carrier is going to vary depending on who is offering a transfer bonus when you’re ready to book! Avianca Lifemiles is overall the best value (if you balance cost in miles and factor in fees) but sometimes it is easier to get Air Canada Aeroplan miles, especially if you can utilize a transfer bonus.

How to search for Star Alliance award availability:

For United flights, you’ll want to search on United.com to see 30 day availability. Look for United awards marked “Saver” — these are the ones that will be released to alliance partners. At this time, those are usually 55,000 miles each way. If you have a certain non-stop route you are searching, you can also find the cheapest date in a 365 day range by using SeatSpy.

If you are booking onto ANA flights, you can search United.com for awards that will be released to Star Alliance partners.

If you want to fly on ANA and plan to book directly with ANA – search directly on ANA for these — you may find increased availability over what partners show.

ANA Mileage Club: 55,000 miles + $446

Best for: Round trip (or open jaw) flights on ANA or United if you don’t mind higher out of pocket costs in exchange for using fewer points.

Transfer points from: American Express Membership Rewards®

ANA Mileage Club currently charges 55,000 miles (round trip) in economy from the US to Japan + $446 . Fuel surcharges change regularly and can move up and down – tired somewhat to oil pricing.

Flights on their Star Alliance partner United are the same approximate price – 50,000 miles + $438 on the itinerary we priced.

This is an option for booking on United or ANA flights but you will pay high taxes and fees. United flights will only be available to book with ANA miles if they are “Saver” awards. You can search directly on United.com and use the 30 day calendar to find flights.

A few more notes: first of all ANA Mileage club only allows round trip awards — though you can also book an open jaw. That means you could fly into Tokyo and then out of Osaka, for instance.

Also note: You can only book tickets with your ANA miles for people “within two degrees” of family relationship.

United Flight Example (booked with ANA): IAD-HND

This flight would cost 50,000 miles + $438

Air Canada Aeroplan: 100,000 miles + $127

Best for: Star Alliance flights, especially if you can utilize a transfer bonus

Transfer points from: American Express Membership Rewards®, Chase Ultimate Rewards®, or Capital One Miles

Aeroplan does not pass along fuel surcharges which gives it an advantage if you want to book a Star Alliance airline like ANA which does have large fuel surcharges. Aeroplan does add a $39 partner booking fee to any award flight booked with a partner and fees for some routes. Aeroplan also allows you to add stopovers for just 5,000 miles which can be helpful if you want to visit a few cities.

United Flight (booked via Aeroplan): IAD-HND

This flight would cost 100,000 miles + $121.27 (USD, using today’s exchange rates)

Air Canada does have a nice feature where you can choose how many points you use and it will change the dollar amount as seen at the bottom of the picture. If you want to spend zero dollars you will have to pay an additional 16,580 points.

Asiana Airlines Flight (booked via Aeroplan): SFO-ICN-NRT This flight costs 100,000 miles and $136.70 USD.

Avianca Lifemiles: 94,000 + $92

Best for: Star Alliance flights. Transfer points from: American Express Membership Rewards®, Citi ThankYou® Points, Capital One Miles (often with a 30% transfer bonus)

Avianca Lifemiles will not pass on fuel surcharges which makes it a great way to pay lower taxes and fees. This is how we booked our November 2023 trip to Japan (and used transfer bonuses to lower the points cost).

Avianca is not known for having great customer service, though, so take that into consideration. Also note that the cancellation and change fees are high: if you need to cancel an award – changes cost $150 per person and cancellations are usually $200.

How to Book: You will need to create a Lifemiles account and login here to confirm availability and book.

United Flight Example (booked via LifeMiles): IAD-HND

This flight would cost 94,000 miles + $92. But again, transfer bonuses to Avianca are very common. If you can use a 30% transfer bonus, you will only need 71,000 miles.

Singapore Airlines: 77,000 + $50 (from LAX only)

Best for: Singapore Fifth Freedom routes (Los Angeles to Tokyo)

Transfer points from: American Express Membership Rewards®, Chase Ultimate Rewards®, Capital One miles, Citi ThankYou® points

If you fly on the Singapore fifth freedom flight (Los Angeles to Tokyo) it will cost just 77,000 miles round trip + $50.20.

How to Search: Singapore’s website will default to searching their own flights, make sure to toggle “Star Alliance” if you want to see partner flights.

United Flight Example (booked via Singapore): IAD-HND

This flight would cost 119,000 miles + $49. This is double the points as it costs with ANA but $388 dollars less than booking via ANA. A better option is to book with Aeroplan or Avianca Lifemiles.

United: 110,000 +$51

Best for: Star Alliance flights and booking multi-leg itineraries with the Excursionist Perk

Transfer points from: Chase Ultimate Rewards®

United switched to dynamic pricing and also made an unannounced devaluation to their miles. You can find one way award tickets to and from Japan for anywhere from 55,000-100,000 each way.

United miles do have some perks to booking with them, though. First – the United website is very user friendly with easy ways to search and sort awards. United doesn’t pass along fuel surcharges or tack on extra fees. In addition – United has a nice perk called the Excursionist Perk which can be valuable if you’re hopping cities! Essentially if you fly to Japan, you could add one more leg for free. So you could fly Chicago to Tokyo, Tokyo to Fukuoka (on a partner), and Fukuoka back to Chicago for the same price as a round trip. You could even add another country (Chicago to Tokyo, Tokyo to Thailand, Thailand back to US).

United Flight Example (booked on United): IAD-HND

United pricing is dynamic and In this case, this Saver award from Washington DC to Tokyo is priced at 55,000 miles +$5.60.

Total round trip between IAD- HND: 110,000 miles + $49.80

Oneworld

Oneworld alliance includes Japan Airlines and American Airlines which are both greats option for getting to Japan. Booking via American Airlines is the best option for oneworld flights. It has low prices and low fees for both JAL and American Airlines flights.

How to Search for oneworld availability

It’s easy to search on AA.com to see 30 day availability. If you have a certain route you are searching, you can also find the cheapest date in a 365 day range at SeatSpy.

American Airlines: 70,000 + $49 (or less)

Best for: Flights on American Airlines and JAL.

Transfer points from: No transfer partners except Bilt which is hard to earn points with – but since both Citi and Barclay issue AA cards, it is fairly easy to rack up points with credit card bonuses

American Airlines has followed United and Delta in switching to dynamic pricing. This has meant that some of the flights to and from Japan have increased in price but also means they have unannounced sales – I saw 46,000 points round trip to Japan in summer 2023.

JAL Flight (booked via American): Chicago to Tokyo

This round trip flight total is 70,000 + $49.80 (Non-stop both ways)

British Airways: 62,000 +$541

As a general rule, I don’t recommend booking a JAL or oneworld flight with British Airways but if you can utilize a transfer bonus and it helps you cut down on the flight cost to Japan it may make sense for you.

They will usually add on large fuel surcharges. You can see here that the same JAL flight as we showed above has an additional $490 in taxes you’ll have to pay.

Alaska Airlines: 90,000 + $76

Alaska Airlines points can be difficult to earn because like American they do not have any major transfer partners. Pricing for the same JAL flight is 90,000 + $76 roundtrip.

Qantas: 63,000 + $530

Qantas, like British Airways, tacks on large fuel surcharges for oneworld partner flights. I don’t recommend booking via Qantas, but will share some pricing as a point of comparison. These fees are even higher than British Airways.

AA flight from LAX – HND

63,000 miles + $530

Sky Team

If you want to fly on Delta, you’ll be best off booking through one of its partner airlines. Virgin Atlantic has the lowest pricing and cheap fees. Flying Blue is a little bit more in terms of points – but if there is a transfer bonus to Flying Blue, it may be cheaper overall.

How to find SkyTeam (Delta) Availability

Follow the tips outlined here to learn more tricks to finding these awards. The cheapest option for booking on Delta is typically Flying Blue.

Delta: 100,000 (or more) + $50

Best for: Flash sales on Delta and flexible dates

Transfer points from: American Express Membership Rewards® (you will pay an excise fee on transferring these from Amex to Delta, for 50,000 points it costs $30)

Delta pricing is the most volatile of all the U.S. airlines. There can be some great deals on Delta but they aren’t predictable. If you want to book on Delta, you may find more consistent pricing by booking via one of their partners.

Delta also typically gives a hefty discount when you book a round trip versus one way on their own flights.

Delta Flight: SEA to TYO

For these dates, the price comes out to 100,000 Delta Skymiles + $50. This is for basic economy which does come with restrictions on seat selection and luggage. You will see below that booking this same route via Flying Blue is considerably cheaper.

Flying Blue {Best!}: from 67,000 + $54

Best for: Booking Delta flights

Transfer points from: Chase Ultimate Rewards®, American Express Membership Rewards®, Capital One miles and Citi ThankYou® Points

How to search: Follow the tips outlined here to learn more tricks to finding these awards. If you live in a smaller airport. You’ll need to first find dates where Delta has award seats available to book on the trans-Pacific flights from LAX, SEA, MSP, etc to Japan. But then you’ll be able to search directly on Flying Blue.

Note that sometimes Virgin shows “phantom availability” meaning you will appear to have availability but not actually be able to book. You’ll need to run the same search on FlyingBlue’s website to make sure you can find the same flight available there, too.

SEA to HND: 67,000 miles + $54

MSP – HND: 83,000 + $54

ATL – HND: 96,000 miles + $54

Smaller airport: OKC to HND: 100,000 + $68

Virgin Atlantic: starting at 88,000 + $50

Best for: Booking Delta flights

Transfer points from: Chase Ultimate Rewards®, American Express Membership Rewards®, and Citi ThankYou® Points. Capital One miles can transfer to Virgin Red which can then be moved to Virgin Atlantic.

How to search: Follow the tips outlined here to learn more tricks to finding these awards. If you live in a smaller airport. You’ll need to first find dates where Delta has award seats available to book (use the tips here) on their flights from LAX, SEA, MSP, etc to Japan. But then you’ll be able to search directly on Virgin Atlantic or Flying Blue.

Note that sometimes Virgin shows “phantom availability” meaning you will appear to have availability but not actually be able to book. It is best to run the same search on FlyingBlue’s website to make sure you can find the same flight available there, too.

This used to be the best option for booking on Delta to Japan but in December 2023, Virgin Atlantic raised prices by 30% or more. FlyingBlue is now the best option.

Pricing is as follows:

88,000 Miles + $53 from SEA

Seattle is the shortest flight and short enough that this will cost just 44,000 miles each way.

99,000 Miles + $53 from LAX, MSP

In the next distance/price band, you’ll find Los Angeles and Minneapolis. These flights will cost 44,500 miles each way

.

131,000 Miles + $53 from DTW, ATL

The most expensive would be the flights from Detroit and Atlanta. Both of these would cost 65,500 miles each way.

Table Comparing Price by Airlines (Points + Taxes/Fees)

As you can see, each airline varies on the miles required for a round trip ticket a well as taxes and fees!

Airline (Miles Type)	Route	Miles (round trip)	Taxes & Fees
Air Canada (Aeroplan)	IAD-HND (on United)	100,000	$121
Air Canada (Aeroplan)	SFO-NRT	100,000	$132
Alaska Airlines	ORD – HND (on JAL)	90,000	$76
American Airlines (AAdvantage)	ORD-HND (on JAL)	70,000	$50
ANA (Mileage Club)	ORD – NRT	55,000	$446
ANA (Mileage Club)	IAD – HND (on United)	50,000	$438
Avianca Lifemiles	ORD-HND (on United)	94,000	$92
British Airways	ORD-HND (on JAL)	62,000	$541
Delta (Skymiles)	SEA-HND	100,000	$55
FlyingBlue	SEA-HND (on Delta)	67,000	$54
FlyingBlue	MSP-HND (on Delta)	83,000	$54
Singapore (KrisFlyer)	LAX-NRT	77,000	$50
Singapore (KrisFlyer)	IAD-HND (on United)	119,000	$50
United	ORD-HND	110,000	$50
Virgin Atlantic	SEA-HND	88,000	$55
Virgin Atlantic	MSP-HND	99,000	$55
Qantas	LAX-HND (on American)	63,000	$530