or, how to go to japan for free. and still pay less than you to go to hawaii. on business class.
i updated my http://www.thechicagogarage.com/forum/off-topic/132651-going-stockholm-istanbul.html thread, also going to southeast asia too. was trying to catch korean grand prix but it wasn't working out with my work schedule and trying to use reward travel. nonetheless i've begun posting more about the stuff on facebook as i have friends who would like to travel more, and i teach them how to do it with points, and then they never do anything, so whatever. here is a real life example i'll link them to. and if anyone wants to go to southeast asia let me know, because i'd prefer to split room costs somewhere more expensive (tokyo) or to have someone that has my back somewhere poor/less safe (thailand, cambodia). i can show you how to get enough points to replicate my trip or just hop in at a point.
anyway, onwards.
you want to go to honolulu for a week in hawaii in february. it's motherfucking cold up here. dates are flexible. what do you book? i hit up aa.com. going for cheapest i'm doing 2 stops instead of 1 stop on the way to honolulu from ohare. what did i find?
not bad. can find cheaper on hipmunk price graph over next 90 days:
looks so, however this is next 90 days - certainly could be more demand when it's colder. let's see how hipmunk do:
we've got
$832 AA and painful stops
$786 united nonstops
$754 us air and stops (being acquired by AA)
how would i do it? well i would tell my friends to get 2 credit cards:
spend $4000 in 3 months. you can do a chunk of this with normal bills and whatnot; the rest you can send money to yourself in various ways really. let's say you use the most inefficient way possible - paypal and a buddy.
you send your buddy $3000 from card one and $2000 from card two. paypal takes $87.30 and $58.30 respectively for a total of $145.60. he has the remaining cash - he withdraws it to his bank, takes it out and hands it to you. you put it in your bank and pay your bill. and now you have 70k AA points plus 5k AA points for earning 1 point per $1 spent.
each airline has different rules for various awards and blih blah - the one we will take advantage of here is using something called and open jaw and using a gateway north american city for a stopover. one of the places we can do this from is tokyo, and we like sushi and tentacle porn so why not go there? coming direct from tokyo, ohare is our NA gateway city and we can stay here for up to a year until we continue on to our final destination, which in this case, we're saying is hawaii. our trip looks like so:
let's book that award. oh but wait. we've got 75k points - it's only 50k economy saver off peak to go to japan in november. and good puppies and kittens - just 25 more for bidness. and look at the last leg of the trip - no points! it is a free bonus leg. plus it inherits the last leg of the trip! you could use business to go to japan instead - if you thought flying in it 6,200 miles instead of 10,400 was a good way to go. and despite arguing politics with some of you, i figure nobody would pick this. it would be psychologically destructive to go there on business and have to come back on economy anyway. some airlines/planes only have a business/first rather than it separate into 2 classes. united for sure (and i think AA) are updating business to lie flat seats as well. while you can go twice as many places if you use an economy amount of points, it is rather hard to give up the higher class once you've flown in it. booking our award:
trip to tokyo less than ideal from actual flight choice standpoint. 1 stop but airport change in new york. search a little more and i'm sure we can find something better but i'm feeling lazy for this example. tokyo to ohare back is nonstop. 1 stop on the way to honolulu - i'm picking vegas, few hours to play wheel of fortune. what cost are we at?
not bad. plus business gets us at least 1 checked bag, so you can check in a skyline in tokyo and ship it back to your crib. nicey nice. of course you still need to get home from hawaii. let's just return the same date. show me the one way hipmunk!
"ok asshole!"
the united flight is the only nonstop, although sucking balls at $1175 now - fuck that. so we are taking a stop through somewhere. alaska and america are buddies, although diff points programs and i'm not sure how that works if you utilize both. actually the points probably aren't worth it so let's just book the $414 flight.
now we're at $145.60 paypal fees + $52.90 award fees + $414 one way which puts us at $612.50. given the right time/methods you could turn paypal into 0.
the bird from tokyo is a 777, stock AA biz class doesn't appear to be lie flat but i won't complain about this vs. economy sandwich for 12 hours:
this may actually be old, maybe retooled now. here's a retooled 777 to brazil - maybe we get lucky. comparo -
economy (not sure if this is regular economy or the economy more with +6 inches of room - think it may be the latter)
business (these will lie flat)
the one to vegas is a 738 and to hawaii (15 hours) is an airbus 332 (a330-200). 738 is shorthand for 737, 800 configuration. it only has first/main so you're in first now. same with the airbus. i believe this is they:
plus of course you get the lounge access and lotsa better food and drinks and other such things.
so you can fly to hawaii in economy like normal for $754-$832
or
you can spend a couple weeks in japan and fly to hawaii for (worst case) $612, half of the time being in business class.
silly objections:
1. seems like a scam/illegal!
- point me to your internet law you made up
2. this will harm my credit score!
- i understand this if you have bad credit. but if not - are you so scared of your arbitrary number assigned by a corporation going down that this isn't worth it?
- are you even going to use your credit score - buy a car/home/refi home?
- do you really think TWO cards is going to kill your credit score? i do this with like TWENTY TWO cards. i DO have stuff about me being a dingbat on my credit score. i also did buy a car last year, and refinance a home, and got the best rates - and my score is still 95th percentile. so stop being a little bitch.
i updated my http://www.thechicagogarage.com/forum/off-topic/132651-going-stockholm-istanbul.html thread, also going to southeast asia too. was trying to catch korean grand prix but it wasn't working out with my work schedule and trying to use reward travel. nonetheless i've begun posting more about the stuff on facebook as i have friends who would like to travel more, and i teach them how to do it with points, and then they never do anything, so whatever. here is a real life example i'll link them to. and if anyone wants to go to southeast asia let me know, because i'd prefer to split room costs somewhere more expensive (tokyo) or to have someone that has my back somewhere poor/less safe (thailand, cambodia). i can show you how to get enough points to replicate my trip or just hop in at a point.
anyway, onwards.
you want to go to honolulu for a week in hawaii in february. it's motherfucking cold up here. dates are flexible. what do you book? i hit up aa.com. going for cheapest i'm doing 2 stops instead of 1 stop on the way to honolulu from ohare. what did i find?
not bad. can find cheaper on hipmunk price graph over next 90 days:
looks so, however this is next 90 days - certainly could be more demand when it's colder. let's see how hipmunk do:
we've got
$832 AA and painful stops
$786 united nonstops
$754 us air and stops (being acquired by AA)
how would i do it? well i would tell my friends to get 2 credit cards:
spend $4000 in 3 months. you can do a chunk of this with normal bills and whatnot; the rest you can send money to yourself in various ways really. let's say you use the most inefficient way possible - paypal and a buddy.
you send your buddy $3000 from card one and $2000 from card two. paypal takes $87.30 and $58.30 respectively for a total of $145.60. he has the remaining cash - he withdraws it to his bank, takes it out and hands it to you. you put it in your bank and pay your bill. and now you have 70k AA points plus 5k AA points for earning 1 point per $1 spent.
each airline has different rules for various awards and blih blah - the one we will take advantage of here is using something called and open jaw and using a gateway north american city for a stopover. one of the places we can do this from is tokyo, and we like sushi and tentacle porn so why not go there? coming direct from tokyo, ohare is our NA gateway city and we can stay here for up to a year until we continue on to our final destination, which in this case, we're saying is hawaii. our trip looks like so:
let's book that award. oh but wait. we've got 75k points - it's only 50k economy saver off peak to go to japan in november. and good puppies and kittens - just 25 more for bidness. and look at the last leg of the trip - no points! it is a free bonus leg. plus it inherits the last leg of the trip! you could use business to go to japan instead - if you thought flying in it 6,200 miles instead of 10,400 was a good way to go. and despite arguing politics with some of you, i figure nobody would pick this. it would be psychologically destructive to go there on business and have to come back on economy anyway. some airlines/planes only have a business/first rather than it separate into 2 classes. united for sure (and i think AA) are updating business to lie flat seats as well. while you can go twice as many places if you use an economy amount of points, it is rather hard to give up the higher class once you've flown in it. booking our award:
trip to tokyo less than ideal from actual flight choice standpoint. 1 stop but airport change in new york. search a little more and i'm sure we can find something better but i'm feeling lazy for this example. tokyo to ohare back is nonstop. 1 stop on the way to honolulu - i'm picking vegas, few hours to play wheel of fortune. what cost are we at?
not bad. plus business gets us at least 1 checked bag, so you can check in a skyline in tokyo and ship it back to your crib. nicey nice. of course you still need to get home from hawaii. let's just return the same date. show me the one way hipmunk!
"ok asshole!"
the united flight is the only nonstop, although sucking balls at $1175 now - fuck that. so we are taking a stop through somewhere. alaska and america are buddies, although diff points programs and i'm not sure how that works if you utilize both. actually the points probably aren't worth it so let's just book the $414 flight.
now we're at $145.60 paypal fees + $52.90 award fees + $414 one way which puts us at $612.50. given the right time/methods you could turn paypal into 0.
the bird from tokyo is a 777, stock AA biz class doesn't appear to be lie flat but i won't complain about this vs. economy sandwich for 12 hours:
this may actually be old, maybe retooled now. here's a retooled 777 to brazil - maybe we get lucky. comparo -
economy (not sure if this is regular economy or the economy more with +6 inches of room - think it may be the latter)
business (these will lie flat)
the one to vegas is a 738 and to hawaii (15 hours) is an airbus 332 (a330-200). 738 is shorthand for 737, 800 configuration. it only has first/main so you're in first now. same with the airbus. i believe this is they:
plus of course you get the lounge access and lotsa better food and drinks and other such things.
so you can fly to hawaii in economy like normal for $754-$832
or
you can spend a couple weeks in japan and fly to hawaii for (worst case) $612, half of the time being in business class.
silly objections:
1. seems like a scam/illegal!
- point me to your internet law you made up
2. this will harm my credit score!
- i understand this if you have bad credit. but if not - are you so scared of your arbitrary number assigned by a corporation going down that this isn't worth it?
- are you even going to use your credit score - buy a car/home/refi home?
- do you really think TWO cards is going to kill your credit score? i do this with like TWENTY TWO cards. i DO have stuff about me being a dingbat on my credit score. i also did buy a car last year, and refinance a home, and got the best rates - and my score is still 95th percentile. so stop being a little bitch.
