The Best Ways to Fly to Japan With Points and Miles [Step-by-Step]

BY 

Michael McHugh

- UPDATED: May 8, 2021   |    27

1. Travel

27

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Temples, palaces, bullet trains, skiing, and gourmet restaurants are a few of the things that come to mind when you think of Japan. With its capital in Tokyo, Japan offers a number of cities to visit including Okinawa, Kyoto, Osaka, and Sapporo.

There are 2 major airports that travelers can fly nonstop to Japan from the U.S.: Haneda (HND) is south of Tokyo with less nonstop options from the U.S., while Narita (NRT) is located east of Tokyo with more nonstop options from the US.

Best Programs to Use to Book Flights

For U.S. travelers, you’ll have no problem booking flights to Japan with a number of flight options no matter where you live in the U.S.

Airline members in the Oneworld, SkyTeam, and Star Alliance all offer flights between the U.S. and Japan — great news as you’ll have a number of ways to use your miles and points.

It’s important to note that award pricing in this article is shown as round-trip. ANA Star Alliance and Virgin Atlantic ANA flights must be booked round-trip, however, all other flights can be booked one-way. With that said, let’s dive into the award options to book your next flight to Japan!

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club

Virgin Atlantic, a non-airline alliance member similar to Alaska Airlines and Etihad, is a program that offers insane value when booking partner airline flights to Japan. The airline has partnerships with a number of airlines, including ANA, that will help you to unlock a ton of value.

The 2 downsides to this redemption are that ANA award flights can’t be booked on the Virgin Atlantic website and must be round-trip. For those wanting the flexibility of booking one-way flights, there are other programs like Alaska Airlines that you can use to book one-way flights from the U.S. to Japan.

Hot Tip: If you’re looking to receive amazing value, watch for the 30% American Express to Virgin Atlantic transfer bonus. Instead of using 110,000 Virgin Points to fly ANA first class from the West Coast to Japan, you’ll only need 85,000 Virgin Points to book ANA round trip first class!

Here are a couple of ANA award flight options, among many, that you can use Virgin Points to book:

• Los Angeles (LAX) – Narita (NRT) for 90,000 Virgin Points in ANA business class
• New York (JFK) – Haneda (HND) for 120,000 Virgin Points in ANA first class

With the Virgin Points in your account, use these steps to help book the flight:

1. Search for ANA flights on United Airlines.
2. Write down the flight details.
3. Call Virgin Atlantic at 800-365-9500 to book the flight.
4. Pay the taxes and fees.

Earning Virgin Points

Earning Virgin Points is easy because of the partnerships the airline has with American Express, Chase, Citi, and Marriott Bonvoy. In addition, Virgin Atlantic has co-branded credit cards that earn miles directly with your spend.

If you want to use transferable points, keep these transfer ratios and transfer times in mind: Amex point transfers take 1-2 days at a 1:1 ratio, Chase points transfer instantly at a 1:1 ratio, Citi point transfers take 2 days at a 1:1 ratio, and Marriott point transfers take 1 day at a 3:1 ratio. With every 60,000 Marriott points that you transfer, you’ll receive 5,000 bonus miles.

Recommended Chase Cards (Personal)

Recommended Chase Cards (Business)

Bottom Line: Booking ANA award flights with Virgin Points during the American Express 30% transfer bonus is the way to go. Even if the timeline of the American Express transfer bonus doesn’t line up with your travel schedule, you can still fly round trip business or first class from the U.S. to Japan with only 90,000-95,000 or 110,000-120,000 miles respectively. 

Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan

Alaska Airlines’ Mileage Plan is an incredible award program that you should consider using to book award flights to Japan. Alaska Airlines is not in an airline alliance and instead has individual airline partnerships.

*Cathay Pacific only flies First Class between Hong Kong (HKG) and Haneda (NHD)

The challenge with using Mileage Plan is that Alaska Airlines miles can be tough to earn. If you can find ways to earn Alaska miles, you’ll be able to unlock value for not only flights to Japan but across the world.

Hot Tip: The way to unlock the most value when redeeming Alaska Airlines miles is to book a stopover. This is where the Alaska Airlines program really shines. Not only can you book one-way partner airline flights, but you can also book a stopover on each one-way flight that you book. 

With enough Alaska Airlines miles in your Mileage Plan account, here are a couple of flights to consider booking:

• New York (JFK) – Haneda (HND) for 120,000 Alaska miles in Japan Airlines business class
• Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) – Narita (NRT) for 140,000 Alaska miles in Japan Airlines first class
• Los Angeles (LAX) – Hong Kong (HKG) – Haneda (HND) for 140,000 Alaska miles in Cathay Pacific first class

When you’re ready to book your flight, follow the steps below to help with the booking process for American Airlines and Japan Airlines flights:

1. Search for award flights on Alaska Airlines.
2. Book the flight online.
3. Pay the taxes and fees that include a $12.50 partner award flight booking fee.

For those of you booking Cathay Pacific award flights, the process is slightly different:

1. Search for award flights on British Airways or Qantas.
2. Call Alaska Airlines at 800-252-7522 between 5:00 a.m. – Midnight PST.
3. Book the flight over the phone.
4. Pay the taxes and fees.

When asked to pay the phone booking fee for Cathay Pacific award flights, simply ask the agent to waive the fee.

Hot Tip: Cathay Pacific award flights can’t be booked online, so the phone agent should be able to waive the phone booking fee.

Earning Alaska Airlines Miles

It can be difficult to earn miles on Alaska Airlines miles as they only partner with 1 transferable point program in Marriott Bonvoy and co-branded credit cards don’t come with sizable welcome offers.

For those of you wanting to transfer Marriott points to Alaska Airlines, point transfers take 4 days at a 3:1 ratio. Separately, you’ll receive a 5,000-mile bonus with every 60,000 Marriott points that you transfer to Alaska. With that said, these are the Marriott cards we recommend:

Bottom Line: Alaska Airlines offers competitive pricing for American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, and Japan Airlines economy, business, and first class flights to Japan. When you factor in the ability to book a stopover, it’s easy to see how much value you can get out of your Alaska Airlines miles. 

American Airlines AAdvantage

American Airlines is in the Oneworld Alliance, so you can use American Airlines AAdvantage miles to fly both American Airlines and Oneworld airline flights from the U.S. to Japan.

One of the main drawbacks of American is that you’ll pay a premium, relative to other programs, to fly business class. With that said, you’re better off using Etihad and/or Japan Airlines to fly American and/or Oneworld business class flights to Japan.

Hot Tip: American Airlines and Oneworld partner flights can be booked on the American website. This reduces the amount of time needed to book an award flight. 

Here are 2 flights to consider when you have the required number of AAdvantage miles in your account:

• San Francisco (SFO) – Haneda (HND) for 120,000 American miles in Japan Airlines business class
• Chicago (ORD) – Narita (NRT) for 120,000 American miles in American Airlines business class

You’ll want to follow these steps when you’ve decided to book a flight:

1. Search for flights on American Airlines.
2. Book the flight online.
3. Pay the taxes and fees.

Earning American Airlines Miles

You’ll have no problem earning American Airlines miles because the airline offers a number of co-branded credit cards and partners with Marriott Bonvoy.

If you’re looking to transfer points from Marriott, the point transfers take 2 days at a 3:1 ratio. With every 60,000 points that you transfer, you’ll receive a 5,000-mile bonus.

Bottom Line: In addition to booking award flights to the Middle East, using AAdvantage miles for flights to Asia represents one of the best ways to use your miles. 

ANA Mileage Club

The first Star Alliance program to consider is ANA Mileage Club. What you’ll find with ANA is that the program has high-value award redemptions to a number of places including Japan.

One of the main drawbacks of booking an ANA partner flight is that the flight must be booked round-trip. If you book direct on ANA (not via a partner), you can book one-way award flights.

Hot Tip: The way to receive the most value with ANA is to book award flights during off-peak dates. January 7 – February 28 and April 1-25 are the lowest off-peak award price dates, followed by March 1-31, May 8 – July 24, and August 20 – December 17 as the second-lowest off-peak dates in 2019. 

Below are a couple of options to consider when you have Mileage Club miles in your ANA account:

• Houston (IAH) – Narita (NRT) for 40,000 ANA miles in ANA economy during Low Season
• Los Angeles (LAX) – Haneda (HND) for 75,000 ANA miles in ANA business class during Low Season

With the required number of ANA miles in your account, follow these steps to book your next award flight:

1. Search for flights on United.
2. Confirm the same availability on ANA.
3. Book the flight online.
4. Pay the taxes and fees.

Earning ANA Miles

It’s relatively easy to earn ANA miles because ANA has partnerships with American Express and Marriott Bonvoy. The points earned in these programs can be transferred directly to ANA. Unfortunately, ANA doesn’t offer a co-branded credit card for the U.S. market.

For those of you with American Express and/or Marriott points, the Amex point transfers take 2-3 days at a 1:1 ratio and Marriott point transfers take 7 days at a 3:1 ratio. If you’re looking to earn Amex points, here are the Amex credit cards that we recommend:

Recommended Amex Cards (Personal)

If you’re a business owner, consider one of Amex’s business credit cards.

Bottom Line: Aeroplan, Avianca, Singapore Airlines, and United are additional programs that you can use to search Star Alliance award flights. Of all these websites, United Airlines is the best website to use to search for Star Alliance award flights. 

Etihad Guest

Joining Alaska Airlines as an airline that is not in an airline alliance is Etihad and its Etihad Guest program. Etihad has partnerships with a number of airlines but for this redemption, you’ll want to focus on American Airlines flights.

The award rates to fly American Airlines are competitive, however, the main drawback with Etihad is that these flights can’t be booked on the Etihad website. Instead, you’ll have to call Etihad to book the flight.

Hot Tip: The Etihad Guest agents are competent so you should have no problem booking its airline partner flights over the phone. 

If flying American Airlines using Etihad miles makes sense for you, here are a couple of flight ideas to check out:

• Dallas (DFW) – Narita (NRT) for 50,000 Etihad miles in American Airlines economy
• Los Angeles (LAX) – Haneda (HND) for 100,000 Etihad miles in American Airlines business class

When you’re ready to book an American Airlines award flight, here are the booking process steps:

1. Search for American Airlines flights on British Airways.
2. Write down all of the flight details.
3. Call Etihad at 877-690-0767 to confirm award availability.
4. Book the flight over the phone.
5. Pay the taxes and fees over the phone.

Earning Etihad Guest Miles

You’ll have no problem earning Etihad Guest miles because the airline has partnerships with American Express, Capital One, Citi, and Marriott Bonvoy. The points earned in all of these programs can be transferred directly to Etihad. Separately, Etihad doesn’t offer a credit card for the U.S. market so transferable points will be one of the main ways to earn Etihad miles.

Keep the transfer ratios and transfer times in mind if you’re using points: American Express points transfer instantly at a 1:1 ratio, Capital One point transfers take 36 hours at 2:1.5 ratio, Citi point transfers take 6 days at a 1:1 ratio, and Marriott point transfers take 5 days at a 3:1 ratio.

With that said, below are some of the Capital One and Citi credit cards we recommend:

Recommended Capital One Cards (Personal)

If you’re a business owner, see our recommended Capital One business credit cards.

Recommended Citi Cards

CREDIT CARD	CARD INFO
Citi Premier℠ Card Learn More (at our partner's secure site)	Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 in purchases within the first 3 months. Earn 3x at restaurants, supermarkets, gas stations, air travel, and hotels; plus, 1x on all other purchases. Annual Fee: $95
Citi Rewards+® Card Learn More (at our partner's secure site)	Earn 15,000 bonus points after you spend $1,000 in purchases with your card within 3 months of account opening; redeemable for $150 in gift cards at thankyou.com 0% Intro APR on balance transfers for 15 months from date of first transfer and on purchases from date of account opening. After that, 13.49% - 23.49% variable APR. Balance transfer fee will apply. Earn 2x ThankYou® Points at Supermarkets and Gas Stations for the first $6,000 per year and then 1X Points thereafter. Plus, earn 1X ThankYou® Points on All Other Purchases. The standard variable APR for Citi Flex Plan is 13.49% - 23.49% variable. Citi Flex Plan offers are made available at Citi's discretion. Annual Fee: $0
Citi® Double Cash Card Learn More (at our partner's secure site)	Earn 2% on every purchase with unlimited 1% cash back when you buy, plus an additional 1% as you pay for those purchases. Annual Fee: $0
Citi Prestige® Card Learn More (at Citi's secure site)	Earn 50,000 bonus points after spending $4,000 within 3 months of account opening. Redeemable for $500 in Airfare at ThankYou.com 5 ThankYou® Points per $1 spent on Airfare and Restaurants 3 points per $1 spent on Hotels and Cruise Lines Annual Fee: $495

Bottom Line: Etihad should be one of the first award programs you look at to fly American Airlines flights at competitive award rates. 

Japan Airlines Mileage Bank

The second Oneworld member to consider using for flights to Japan is Japan Airlines. Using Japan Airlines miles is a great option because you have the option to fly either American Airlines or Japan Airlines flights.

Japan Airlines miles are challenging to earn, which is one of the main downsides of using the Mileage Bank Program. If you can find ways to earn the miles, you’ll expose yourself to competitive award pricing for flights around the world.

Hot Tip: We recommend using Great Circle Mapper to calculate the distance of your flight and the number of miles that you’ll need when using Japan Airlines. The reason being is because Japan Airlines uses a distance-based award chart. 

For flights to Japan, here are a couple of American Airlines and Japan Airlines flights that you can book with your miles:

• Boston (BOS) – Narita (NRT) for 50,000 Japan Airlines miles in Japan Airlines economy
• Los Angeles (LAX) – Haneda (HND) for 100,000 Japan Airlines miles in American Airlines economy

The booking process with Japan Airlines is straightforward:

1. Search for flights on British Airways.
2. Confirm the same award availability on Japan Airlines.
3. Book the award flight online.
4. Pay the taxes and fees.

Earning Japan Airlines Miles

As mentioned earlier, it’s tough to earn Japan Airlines miles as the airline only partners with Marriott Bonvoy. On top of that, Japan Airlines doesn’t offer a co-branded credit card to the U.S. market with a sizeable welcome offer.

The transfer time for Marriott points to Japan Airlines takes 2 days at a 3:1 ratio. Separately, for every 60,000 Marriott points that you transfer, you’ll receive a 5,000-mile transfer bonus.

Bottom Line: Japan Airlines offers one of the cheapest ways to fly Oneworld airline flights between the U.S. and Japan. 

Korean Air SKYPASS

The lone SkyTeam partner making the list is the Korean Air SKYPASS program. Korean Air is known for a couple of things: the quality of its business and first class cabins and offering competitive award pricing on select routes, including round trip flights in Korean Air business class flights to Japan from the U.S.

Similar to Japan Airlines, many of you will find it difficult to earn Korean Air miles. However, if you can find a way to build a sizable Korean Air mileage balance, you’ll be able to book competitive award flights.

Hot Tip: Korean Air uses region-based award charts. This means that it will cost the same number of miles to fly from any city in the region of your departure to any city in the region of your arrival. 

Korean Air is the airline you’ll fly between the U.S. and Japan on flights like these:

• Atlanta (ATL) – Seoul (ICN) – Narita (NRT) for 70,000 Korean Air miles in Korean Air economy
• Dallas (DFW) – Seoul – Haneda (HND) for 160,000 Korean Air miles in Korean Air first class

Here are the steps to book an award flight with Korean Air:

1. Search for flights on Air France, Delta, or KLM.
2. Confirm the same award availability on Korean Air.
3. Book the award flight online.
4. Pay the taxes and fees.

Earning Korean Air Miles

A combination of co-branded credit cards and Marriott points will likely make it easier to earn Korean Air miles. Korean Air has a partnership with Marriott and also offers a co-branded credit card to the U.S. market.

For those looking to transfer Marriott points directly to Korean Air, the transfer time takes 2 days at a 3:1 ratio. You’ll also receive a 5,000-mile bonus with every 60,000 Marriott points that you transfer.

Bottom Line: Korean Air offers competitive award pricing to Japan. The problem many travelers will face is earning enough miles to book an award flight. 

Final Thoughts

With the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo coming up, you may be looking for the best way to book an award flight to Japan. As we covered in this article, there are 7 excellent programs to use to book an award flight.

To give you the most award flight flexibility, we recommend earning transferable points from American Express, Capital One, Chase, Citi, and Marriott Bonvoy. These points will help you to unlock value in any of the programs that we discussed.

The information regarding the Chase Freedom Unlimited®, Capital One® Venture® Rewards Credit Card, Capital One® VentureOne® Rewards Credit Card, and Citi Prestige® Card was independently collected by Upgraded Points and not provided nor reviewed by the issuer. 

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