Poor planning on my groups part, we've already booked the airbnbs and now have to fill in the travel for 4/16. Both my gf and I have ultimate rewards (sapphire reserve for me and preferred for her combined with previous freedom usage) At this point in time, I don't mind slightly undervaluing my points because I value shorter flights and more sightseeing time. With asiana thru united it'll be 1am arrive 4pm for 22.5k points each so 12 hour flight and we lose half a day traveling. We both have 3k united points that expire by february so if we're both able to use that then it would drop it down to 19.5k. Korean air has 12am arrive 11am for 25k points each so 9 hour flight and we can explore a few hours while we wait for our airbnb to open around 3/4. The negative being we'll be lugging around our stuff. Thoughts? What would you do?
Japan has luggage delivery...the last time I used it was $15 -$20 bucks to ship a luggage from airport to hotel/airbnb. Lots of people use the service.
I have the Chase Sapphire Reserve. I already got my 100k points. I need to look into the other perks for the card. though.
@peleincubus how long did you have to wait to get the points? or was it just a month after the 3 month period?
I see there's a China Eastern flight that leaves at 2:10 AM and arrives in Osaka at 1:10 PM that should be cheaper than either the Korean Air or the Asiana flights. Currently its priced at $312 per ticket. Granted its China Eastern so you have to transit through Shanghai which isn't any fun but at least China now has visa free transfers. Also, China Eastern is a Skyteam airline so presumably you can transfer points to Korean Air and book with points through them (or transfer to FlyingBlue, you probably want to check and figure out which one would offer the cheaper flight) There are cheap Air Asia flights but you'd end up landing at night and it sounds like you don't want to do that.
