Fly To Tokyo Business Class

[bungaro]

Hi all
I’ve been reading lots on here over the last few weeks and thanks to everyone who posts great advice! I am hoping to visit Japan in the next couple of years and would love to do a leg (or both!) in Business Class using avios as much as possible. Here in Ireland the Avios opportunities aren’t as good but I’m trying to get as many points as I can by mainly using my Revolut points and I’ve just gotten my Bank of Ireland Avios credit card. I’ve just under 8k points as of now.
I’ll probably have to fly the first leg of my flight from Cork separately which is fine. I’ve seen on the BA website that using Avios can reduce the price of the flight but I’m assuming that the better option is what I’ve read on here and ringing up the international call centre about 330 days before the flight? Being a teacher, I can only go on our holidays from school so I’m looking at April 2027 as a good target!

So should I stick with looking at BA or would ye advise another airline (which I can use my Avios on)?

Once I have my dates, I try and ring at midnight to secure one of the business class flights right? And is it just a case of telling the agent what date you’d like to fly and they tell you what it would cost with your points?

And is the above different from booking premium economy and using your points to upgrade (not sure where the figure would be)?

If anyone has any pointers for me then I’d appreciate any advice.

Thanks

[Aston100]

Can you get to Helsinki easily?
If so, consider Finnair.
They fly to Osaka, Nagoya and both airports in Tokyo.
I paid 62.5k Avios + £132.80 cash per person when I flew to Osaka in April this year. This was booked through the BA site as it was for some reason cheaper (the cash element that is) than through the Finnair site.

Obviously I had to make my own way over to Helsinki first.

Though if you want a headstart on other people, you’d have to book at 360 days prior on the Finnair site (BA won’t have these flights on their site until 355 days prior) but you may end up paying a bit more for the taxes & charges.

[travelmonkey]

A few thoughts here…

1) just want to check you appreciate the scale of Avios required here, compared to what you’ve so far got. My business class BA flights to Japan this year were 210,000 Avios plus taxes return per person. I had the BAPP 241 voucher, so that meant I only paid one lot of Avios but still two sets of taxes for the spouse and I.

2) If you don’t have a voucher (I guess the BA Amex card isn’t available in RoI) then two other carriers come to mind as good value options
a) Qatar, connecting in Doha, is 160,000 Avios plus taxes per person and gives you the choice of either Tokyo airport or Osaka.
b) Iberia fly into NRT from MAD at 141,000 plus taxes return per person (I couldn’t pull up a price from Dublin on ba.com but a glance at ITA matrix suggests that’ll need an overnight in Madrid anyway).
c) Other options like Finnair, JAL etc. Will likely be more expensive in either points, fees or both.

3) If you go for BA, it may be worth comparing prices from Belfast against Dublin. I believe BA include a domestic connecting flight in the price of a long haul reward ticket but don’t know if they extend that to Dublin.

Hope that helps 👍

[NorthernLass]

Madrid would be another option as Iberia also flies to Tokyo. Read as much as you can on here about collecting avios, and work out how many you need for each airline, and when they release their award seats.

Tokyo is probably the most in-demand destination for reward seats so you’ll need to do a lot of forward planning.

Are you realistically going to be able to collect enough avios? There are a few readers here based in ROI and NI (or have been previously), so it might be worth asking specifically about collecting opportunities they can suggest.

If going with BA, bear in mind that starting in ROI can save you money on the surcharges BA adds to reward flights – you may have to start in DUB but if your journey is all on one booking you won’t have the added hassle of collecting and re-checking bags, and if you were to miss a connection BA would arrange another flight for you. ORK-LHR-TYO on Aer Lingus plus BA might also be an option on one booking.

@travelmonkey beat me to a couple of things – Belfast would indeed be a free connection, but not Dublin. You can save a few thousand avios, however, by booking the DUB leg into economy.

[davefl]

You may want to look at all the collection opportunites on the Aer Lingus website, including the estore, shopping in stores, and the various credit card options https://www.aerlingus.com/aerclub/collecting-avios/

[travelmonkey]

One other thing to consider… don’t forget cash as an option. Avios has a cost (at least in opportunity cost) and a rough value. Unless Avios are crazy ready for you to get your hands on or you really need the flexibility or a reward seat, you should always compare against a cash fare (which also earns points, don’t forget!) Though it’s not a guarantee for your dates in 2027, ANA are showing prices for April 2026 just under €2800 on some dates, connecting in Frankfurt, which is almost certainly a more attractive option than fighting everyone else to give BA 210,000 Avios plus fees. Common wisdom would suggest you’d also get a better experience on ANA too.