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Hello Fellow Head for points members, I am trying to book business class flights to Japan for October this year, and when looking at Avios reward light finder, I see there are no flights in October.
I am happy to fly over two flights, I have just under 500,000 points, I would like your advice on how to do this is business full trip.
You’ve picked a very popular route – for BA flights you need to be booking when the seats are released at T-355.
Have you searched on individual dates to see if anything comes up on partner airlines, e.g. Iberia (try searching from MAD)?
If you take out a subscription to SeatSpy, you can set up an alert to notify you if extra seats appear on BA (but not all partners).
There are a few threads on here already about booking award seats to HND/NRT.
try flighttimecalendar dot com. Brilliant site and would show NL’s Iberia flight. Youve very little chance to find something soon with BA. Also try search on aa dot com, redeem miles, one way search, business from Helsinki with Finnair.
If you can’t find anything on Finnair or Qatar, then consider flying to HKG, SIN, Seoul, or even mainland China, and taking an onward flight from there.
Agree with the comments on here about difficulties in finding direct flights. I managed to grab 3 business class return to Japan last year but booked nearly 12 months in advance. Shanghai has much better availability, and it’s a quickish flight from there to Japan, if you’re willing to change planes. We loved our first visit to Japan and hopefully will be back out there in a few years again. Best of luck getting flights.
Just cancelling a companion voucher booking in biz as we speak. Outbound 20th Apr, 9:10am – inbound 5th May 8:50am in case you want to check whether the seats have gone back and want to try and snatch them?
There is at least one dedicated thread on this so you might want to search the forum in addition to the information you received here. Unless you are within read of the convenience of a direct flight from LHR then BA would be my last choice. It is relatively poor value even with a voucher, and products and services on the alternatives are generally a bit better. Also, if LHR is not your local it’s best avoided anyway as even T5-T5 connections can be a horrible experience.
Qatar Airways to Manila and then a lo co hop to Osaka is another possibility
Also look at availability to Nagoya, Osaka, and Sapporo on Finnair.
I’m heading to Japan later this month going out via Seoul and back from Nagoya.
Finnair is a good option but my experience is they only seem to have one business seat for redemption on each long haul flight. So pretty unhelpful unless it’s a solo trip.
Qatar also flies to Osaka.
JAL from Frankfurt, Paris and Helsinki.
BA to Hong Kong, Shanghai, Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur, Delhi and then JAL. Or if two stops then also Qatar to those places or any other places. Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Manila.Consider also flying via US if all else fails especially on the way back. BA frequently throws routes via US from Tokyo as it’s not significantly longer than say with a very long stop over in Doha.
You also need to search both Narita and Haneda separately as BA IT sometimes does not throw availability if you put just TYO.
Finnair is a good option but my experience is they only seem to have one business seat for redemption on each long haul flight. So pretty unhelpful unless it’s a solo trip.
That’s not true. They have guaranteed two J seats on each flight. Frequently they release more close to the date. Booked two seats for October Helsinki-Haneda last week and there were 5 available.
If OP is flexible, they can wait longer usually there are plenty seats on partner airlines closer to the date. Even F on JAL is very easy to score with daily checking. Shame Expert Flyer alerts don’t work anymore.
Thank you all for your advice and comments. I shall look at the options above and work out the best route I can.
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