Japan - First Japan trip - travel agents, side trips, etc?

I will be going to Japan May 15-21, 2004, for a medical imaging conference in Kyoto.

I was hoping I could get some input from the board. I've been looking for good prices on airfare - we're expected to try to keep the university's airfare costs down around $800. They'll hold us to it if we're going on side trips - anything over that comes out of our pocket.

I'd ideally like to fly out of MSN, but other options are MKE (don't mind) or ORD (acceptable). The recommended airport in Japan is KIX, though we would still need to take the train, so I'm open to flying to another airport to save money.

The conference organizers recommend using a travel agency called JTB (http://www.jtbusa.com). Does anyone have any experience with them? They give example airfares of 600-900 SFO-KIX, and $900-1100 JFK-KIX.

Just doing a quick search through expedia, I can find $1100 r/t (including taxes) from MSN or $750 out of ORD. Are there any Asian carriers that I should be searching that wouldn't be listed in Expedia/Orbitz? I found JAL's "50 years" sale, but it seems like that's mostly offering FF benefits rather than cheaper fares.

Just for reference, my preferred airlines are UA and NW, but I don't have status on either, so I'm willing to fly on anything. If on NW, I might consider using miles to upgrade, but otherwise I will be happy with coach (if I stay up 24 hours straight before leaving, then I'll sleep in any seat!)

I'm also looking for what to do for side trips. I'm mostly interested in outdoorsy stuff - climbing, hiking, scuba-diving, etc... If anyone has suggestions for good stuff to do nearby, I would be interested.

I have a friend in Australia (Brisbane) who has invited me to come visit. I've been considering going for a week after the conference, though I haven't been able to find an inexpensive way to do so. I've tried looking for circle trip routings (e.g. ORD-KIX-BNE-ORD), but they often come up at $5000+ (though I did find one for $2700). I can get a KIX-BNE r/t for $750 on Quantas. Am I better off just booking separate (nested) itineraries? If so, how much of a window (days?) should I allow to avoid misconnects?

As another alternative, I have coworkers from China who have suggested a trip there after the conference. Is there an inexpensive way to to go China or Hong Kong? I've tried playing with some circle trips through HKG and they run $1700 or so - it seems like a big difference for such a short flight.

The other thing I've thought about is visiting some Pacific Islands and going diving. At least this would be in the "right direction." I haven't looked into this at all yet.

Anyway, I'm just looking for general information and suggestions. I've learned so much in the five months I've been on FlyerTalk, but I feel so far out of my league planning a trip like this.

I should say that I'm incredibly cheap and am always looking for any way to save money on trips like this. I felt honored today when my research advisor sent an email out to all of students attending the conference saying "In the spirit of adventure and holiday, I would like you to cover your meals while you are there and try to "mooch" whatever free meals you can come up with. (Speak to Ethan for helpful hints)"

If anyone would like to read about a previous year's conference (Hawaii), I've written a long trip report (with photos) and put it online here:
http://www.cae.wisc.edu/~brodskye/trips/hawaii_may02/

Thanks to all,

Ethan

More from the OP here:

Does anyone know a cheap way to get airfare from Beijing to Delhi (India). We've managed to piece together a promising-looking itinerary by speaking with a travel agent in China. We're looking at going from the US to Japan to China to India and then back to the US. It appears we can get a Chicago-Tokyo-Beijing open-jaw(*), with a week stopover for the conference, for under $500, and one-way airfare from India back to the States is $550. But Beijing to Delhi tickets run $1000-1500.

Does anyone know a good cheap way to get from Beijing to Delhi? We'd be looking at
dates around May 27ish.

(*) Is it still considered an open-jaw if the "not flown" leg is longer than either of the other legs?

[This message has been edited by ethanb (edited Feb 25, 2004).]

JTB is the Japan Travel Bureau, by far the biggest travel agency in Japan -- but rarely the cheapest as most of their customers are corporate. This is for Japan itself though, I don't know how competitive their prices ex-USA are.

Scuba diving in mainland Japan is (cough) not spectacular, but hiking is good since there are plenty of mountains around. There are numerous easy day trips in the Kansai area (eg. Kobe's Rock Garden is nice), but if you want something more challenging head out into the Japan Alps in the middle of the country -- although it's too early in the year for some of the best treks.

If purchased from Japan, a r/t to Australia should be in the region of Y100,000 (<$1000). End of May is after Golden Week and relatively off-season, so scoring a fare like this shouldn't be too hard -- poke around on Japanese travel agency sites like HIS Travel or No. 1 Travel. A considerably cheaper option would be heading to the Northern Marianas (Saipan/Guam) or Okinawa though, both have some very good diving.

x

[This message has been edited by moondog (edited Feb 25, 2004).]

I'm editing my post because your ORD-KIX-PEK open jaw deal is pretty sweet; it is round trip right?

If you want to tack India on, I'd suggest you close the open jaw (PEK-DEL-KIX) with an AA award; only 60K miles in business class.

Another option involving AA miles would be to redeem a "distance zone 2 award" between PEK/KIX and DEL for 35K miles in Y (J is cost prohibitive compared to the RT award above) and buy one of those cheap oneway tickets from India to the US.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ethanb:


(*) Is it still considered an open-jaw if the "not flown" leg is longer than either of the other legs?

</font>
hmmm. I thought I understood what you were doing, but now I'm not so sure. After rereading your post, it sounds like you're talking about a oneway ticket from ORD to PEK with a stop in NRT. If that's the case, option #2 above could still work, but seems a bit excessive ($1100 plus 35K miles).

If I were you, I'd table the India trip for another day and try to do something like ord-kix-pek-hkg-nrt-ord, which I'm pretty sure you could pull off for under $1000 if you used the same agent that got you the $500 oneway (~$800 if you skip HKG or PEK).


[This message has been edited by moondog (edited Feb 25, 2004).]

We decided to table the trip to India (although one of my coworkers got a fare that included Japan, Hong Kong, India, and Korea, for $1550 all-in).

It looks like I'm going to get a routing with all flights on United Airlines:
14 May: MKE-ORD-KIX
21 May: NRT-PEK,
28 May: PEK-ORD-MKE
for about $1090 all-in through a travel agent (JTB). My work should pay around $800 of this, so I'll be out $300 for the side trip to Beijing. Any comments on this?

One of my coworkers actually managed to get a similar routing, MSN-?-NRT, NRT-PEK, PEK-NRT-?-MSN, for only $830 through a Chinese travel agent several days ago, but the agent wasn't able to get any more tickets at that price.

The agent said the tickets would be booked as Q or V for $1090. I can see the same routing on ual.com for $1207 all in fare class H.

Thanks for all the input to my first posting in this thread,

Ethan

[ed to add fare class]

[This message has been edited by ethanb (edited Mar 05, 2004).]

There's an infinite amount of stuff to do in the Kyoto area. It all depends on what your interests are. On the whole, though, I wouldn't go to Japan for outdoor activities except for hiking.

I recommend getting the Lonely Planet guide to Kyoto, because, as you said, you're "cheap," and it has the most complete lists of budget accommodations. It also includes information on every possible aspect of the city and its surroundings.

If you want to do the standard tourist stuff, stop off at the Tourist Information Center across from Kyoto Station (after you've taken the train from KIX) and pick up English-language information there.

I also recommend a side trip to Nara, a smaller city with lots of historic monuments, and another side trip to Himeji, to see the castle that was featured in Shogun.

To see the countryside and have a real traditional Japanese experience, spend a night in a Buddhist temple on Koyasan. The train ride out there is lovely, and the accommodations in the temples are similar to those in a mid-level traditional inn.

I can't give you all the details in one post, but definitely get a guidebook. Lonely Planet covers the most ground, and the Rough Guide covers fewer things in more depth.