Introduction: Tokyo and Two 787s

  1. Introduction: Tokyo and Two 787s
  2. The Club Lounge at SJC
  3. ANA 787 Business Class SJC-NRT
  4. Hotel Review: Hyatt Regency Tokyo
  5. Hotel Review: Park Hyatt Tokyo
  6. Activities in Tokyo
  7. United 787 Business Class NRT-DEN

I’ll soon be leaving for a quick 5 day trip to Tokyo, a city I’ve never visited before. It’s actually been a while since my last international vacation so I’ve really been looking forward to this one since I booked it a couple of months ago.

Tokyo is one of those destinations that are serviced by multiple 787s, including from ANA, JAL, and United. I used US Airways miles for this redemption at their amazing 90K miles round trip Business Class price to North Asia, so I needed to find Star Alliance flights. I also wanted to fly on some of the newest planes in the sky, so the 787 was what I was aiming for.

ANA has a lie-flat seat in a private 1-2-1 configuration. Should be great!

Thankfully both ANA and United are Star Alliance members, so all I needed to do was find what routes they fly the 787 and search for availability. I’m in Orange County, CA, so the ANA flight from SJC-NRT was a logical choice, with a positioning flight to get from SNA-SJC. On the way back, I knew my options were either the same ANA flight or United from NRT-DEN or NRT-LAX. The Los Angeles flight would have been ideal, but availability on that flight is tough to come by in advance. I ended up booking NRT-DEN-SNA on United.

So my itinerary was SNA-SJC on Southwest sing Southwest points I earned from a credit card bonus, then SJC-NRT on ANA’s 787 in their new staggered Business Class. On the way back I’m flying United from NRT-DEN-SNA, with the Trans-Pacific flight on United’s 787 Business Class.

The United 787 seat is also lie-flat, but is in a 2-2-2 configuration.

According to US Airways’ routing rules, you’re allowed either one stopover or one open jaw. I took advantage of the open jaw by returning to a different airport I flew out of. That meant I lost my stopover, but I was fine with making a quick trip to a single destination this time.

In Tokyo I’ll be spending 3 nights at the Hyatt Regency and one night at the Park Hyatt. My reasoning for not staying at the Park Hyatt the entire time is simple: when I’m vacationing in a big city, I’m spending minimal time at the hotel itself. I wanted to use the least amount of points I could while still being in a decent part of Tokyo, and the Hyatt Regency fit that bill. I booked the Park Hyatt, which happens to be a short walk from the Hyatt Regency, because I’ve been told it’s simply one of those that you need to experience. I booked both hotels with points I transferred from my Chase Ultimate Rewards account – 36K for the Hyatt Regency (12K a night) plus 22K for the Park Hyatt for a total of 58K Ultimate Rewards points.

So my total cost for airfare and hotels was 90K US Airways miles, about 6K Southwest points and 58K Ultimate Rewards points. I’ll also get to test out the benefits of my Hyatt Platinum membership courtesy of the Chase Hyatt card (which effectively is just free internet).

20 thoughts on “Introduction: Tokyo and Two 787s

  1. What site did you use to search for availability? Who did you call/login to to book the tickets? Newbie question!

    1. I’ll detail all of this in my review of the flight itself, but I found availability using United’s search and called US Airways to book since I used their miles!

  2. if you were to use United miles, you could had book ANA F from nrt-ord which (one mile at a time just reviewed).

    1. Yes I could have, but I wanted to fly the 787 specifically, and since this is a short trip I didn’t want to fly East 4 hours first. I’ll save that for a trip I have more time for!

  3. Omar, there is daily lax-sjc flight everyday and save you a stopover, a little trip from the OC to Lax is not so bad, the trade off is you dont get to see another city for a little convienent . anyways have a safe trip and lookforward to your report and the next OC meet

    1. Yeah I knew there are several LAX-SJC flights, but I actually hate driving down to LAX! A few thousand southwest points was worth it for me.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.