United Airlines is running an award sale to Japan for 25,000 miles each way in economy. It’s marketed in a bit of a funny way, since they’re promoting both paid fares and awards on sale – the lede is about financing the trip for “$74/mo!”
I think it would be interesting if they promoted awards as ’12 months same as miles! Japan for just 2,083 miles per month!’ But financing travel is bigger business than you might expect. Up to 15% of United Vacations purchases are financed. And of course United is earning commission selling the financing as well as generating more trips this way.
- Purchase by April 7 for travel by May 18.
- No blackout dates or day of travel restrictions, but lowest award inventory must be available
- Travel to/from Tokyo Haneda or Narita as well as Osaka
I’m headed back to Tokyo soon and can’t wait. It’s one of the greatest food cities in the world (in addition to other things, of course). It’s a long way to go in coach, but that’s how most people travel, and spending fewer points to do so is great. It’s a short travel window of course, but that’s a function of United seeing light close-in bookings I’d imagine.
(HT: Loyalty Lobby)
If you finance vacations for any considerable term you need to reconsider your life choices. Why financially burden yourself with something of no residual value other than some faded memories and IG posts that gets 3 likes.
Dreaming of a discounted business fare to TYO on United. Coach miles rate is a good one, but can’tdo it before availabilty window closes.
This didn’t go for Business Class flights?
Tokyo is one of my favorite cities and haven’t been there since 2019. But I’m going to wait a while longer to go back until the masking hysteria ends. Very glad that masking is finally over where I live, and as much as I prefer traveling in Japan and Asia I don’t want to subject myself to that again unnecessarily. Lots of places in the world to travel where I can look people in the face, and I’m focusing on those places now. Given the number of empty seats on the greatly reduced flights to Japan, I’m guessing that I’m not alone in that – and I know that another sad reason for the empty seats is that Japanese people don’t want to go to places without masks out of fear.
The rest of Japan is making up for positive currency developments and award sales. I’m looking at Hyatt in January and everything in Tokyo (minus Yokohama) is about 100-200% more than it was pre-pandy for room rates.