Wondering how you can make your dream trip to Japan come true even though finances are tight? Well, you’re in luck because I booked all of our flights from the midwest US to Japan as well as our ten hotel nights for free, and now I’m telling you how. This blog post is all about how to travel to Japan for free.
How To Get Free Flights To Japan
First and foremost, you can’t make your trip to Japan a reality without flights. And, I’m not talking about squished economy flights to Japan. I’m talking about potential business class flights — complete with lie-flat seats and 5-star service– from the US to Japan. Seriously, my Delta One business class flight fare was free. I only had to pay $33 for taxes and fees.
The easiest way to book free flights to Japan is by leveraging credit card points and miles. More specifically, you should leverage credit card welcome offers to earn 100,000s of points and miles without spending more than you usually do on a daily basis. Trust me, you don’t have to spending millions of dollars to earn a free flight to Japan. Read more about how to earn more points and miles without spending more here. Or, read my beginner guide to points, miles and welcome offers here.
How I Got A Free Business Class To Japan
For this trip, I used points earned on a few different cards: my Capital One Venture card, my husband’s Capital One Venture X card, my United MileagePlus Business card and my husband’s AMEX Business Platinum card. All of these cards earn flexible points, meaning I can transfer them to corresponding transfer partners (airline and hotel loyalty programs) to maximize the points’ value. Additionally, I can utilize airline alliances to book alliance partner flights, maximizing my points’ value even more.
For example, Capital One is transfer partners with Flying Blue, which is Air France and KLM’s loyalty program. Air France is alliance partners with Delta Air Lines, meaning, you can book Delta flights through Air France’s website. So, to redeem my Capital One miles for my Delta One flight to Japan, I transferred my flexible Capital One miles out to Flying Blue and then booked my Delta One flight through Air France’s website.
This Delta One flight from Seattle to Tokyo only cost 89,000 Capital One miles plus $33 in taxes and fees. This a steal considering 89,000 miles have a cash value of $890, and this Delta One seat is worth well over $6000 or more. These brilliant award availabilities book up quickly though, so I highly recommend signing up for an award alert system like Thrifty Traveler, Roame, or Pointsyeah. I was alerted about this flight through Thrifty Traveler Premium ($20 off your first year here), but Pointsyeah.com has an excellent free version to start with too. Although, I particularly love that the Thrifty Traveler email alert shows you exactly how to book step by step.
How We Got Free Economy Flights To And From Japan
As fabulous as this business class flight deal was, it only accounted for one of our flights from Seattle. We’re coming from a small airport in northeastern Wisconsin. So, we also had to book positioning flights to Seattle from our midwestern airport. For these, I used 32,800 of my United miles, earned from a welcome offer earlier in the year, plus $11.20 in taxes and fees. This covered both my and my husband’s economy positioning flights to Seattle.
My husband is also flying economy from Seattle to Tokyo. Unfortunately, we had some tech errors while booking his Delta One flight, and the award availability was gone by the time the website was back up. So, he’s taking one for the team and flying in economy (brownie points for him). For his flight, I chose to book through the Capital One portal using 39,500 of his Capital One Venture X miles plus $0 in taxes and fees.
I would usually prefer to transfer miles out to partners over booking through the portal, but this way, we were guaranteed to be on the same flight. We would personally rather be on the same flight instead of getting the best points redemption possible. This is a personal preference. In my opinion, at the end of the day, free is free!
On our way home, we will both be flying in economy on Delta Air Lines. AMEX is transfer partners with Delta, so I transferred 112,000 AMEX Membership Rewards points from AMEX to Delta plus $103.16 in taxes and fees to cover both of our return flights (56,000 points plus $51.58 in taxes and fees per person). This covers all of our flights from Tokyo back to our small hometown. We’ll have one stop in Minneapolis before landing in our home airport.
So, in total, all of our flight fares to Japan were free, plus some taxes and fees. For all of our Japan flights, including my business class flight, we spent 273,300 points and miles plus $147.36 in taxes and fees. Woo!
How To Get Free Hotels In Japan
Now for hotels: you can’t fully know how to travel to Japan for free without hotels. I booked all of our hotels in Japan for free, no taxes or fees necessary at booking. We’re staying in Tokyo for five nights and Kyoto for three nights. We are also staying in Seattle for two nights before our flight to Tokyo. In total, our trip includes 10 nights in 3+ star hotels booked for free.
Like flight transfer partners, I transferred flexible credit card points out to transfer partners for our hotels. More specifically, I transferred points from Chase to Hyatt at a 1:1 ratio. Points and miles travelers love Hyatt because of Hyatt’s incredibly valuable low-points redemptions. You can read all about transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt here.
For Seattle, I redeemed 40,000 points for two nights at the Grand Hyatt Seattle. For Tokyo, I redeemed 60,000 points for five nights at the Hyatt Regency Tokyo Bay. And for Kyoto, I redeemed 28,500 points for three nights at the Hyatt Place Kyoto. In total, we spent 128,500 points and $0 in taxes and fees for our 10 night Japan trip.
As usual, all of these Chase Ultimate Rewards points were earned through welcome offers on a variety of Ultimate Rewards-earning Chase business cards, such as my favorite Chase Sapphire Preferred card and my Chase Ink Unlimited card. You can learn all about the correct way to earn Chase Ultimate Rewards points here.
And there you have it, folks. This is exactly how we’re traveling to Japan for free, and how you can travel to Japan for free too! For more tips to travel on a budget and travel using points and miles, check out my Budget Travel Bible ebook here.
More Points + Miles Tips
How To Get Free Flights For Life (Travel Hacking For Beginners)
Best Travel Credit Cards For Beginners
How To Get More Credit Card Points Without Spending More
How To Choose The Best Travel Credit Card (Quiz)
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