Japan is a top search every year for people’s travels for good reason. I’ll forever think of my life in two sections-Before Japan and After Japan.
Here’s my complete points breakdown including all the cards that I used to book my trip.
Flights:
Very occasionally, American Airlines will release business class flights for 60,000 points. When that happened, I immediately booked a round trip from SLC to Tokyo, Japan. I had been hoarding AA points from the cards at the link below for a day like this. I booked 2 flights for 120k and $52 each. The flights were actually operated by Japan airlines and had a layover in Dallas one way and SFO on the way home.
So in total I used 240k points and $104 for business class. Cash price would’ve been $15,000 each (typically $10,000 but we did this last minute).
Here’s the cards I recommend getting for flights on American or their partners:
See 4 options here
There’s also a Barclay’s card that will earn you points with a $1 spend. Non-affiliate link.
Hotels:
We stayed in all Hyatt hotels of course because we love the redemption rates we get with points. First was the Hyatt Centric Ginza for 2 nights and 50,000 points. Then the Hyatt Regency Kyoto for 3 nights and 69,000 points. Then last, the Andaz Tokyo Toranomon Hill for 2 nights and 60,000 points.
So in total the hotels required 179,000 Hyatt points that we transferred over from Chase.
This link will tell you exactly what cards to open for Hyatt and how to make that transfer.
In total the cost in points was 419,000 points and $104 for flights and hotels for 8 days in Japan.
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