- Which route/airline did you book and which class?
With a start point in Bangkok, Thailand, a layover at Osaka and Kobe, Japan, and an end point at Sapporo, Japan, the routing was as follows:
BKK-SIN SQ C
SIN-KIX SQ C
(Layover)
UKB-CTS NH(HD) Y
Singapore Airlines (SQ) BKK-SIN-KIX and ANA All Nippon Airways (NH) operated by Air Do (HD) UKB-CTS
SQ segments in Business Class (I), NH operated by HD in Economy Class (I).
The transit in SIN is very tight with just 50 minutes, so I hope that will be doable (visions of a lost hotel night in Osaka). I chose the day flight option, in order to be able to enjoy the service en route.
The layover in Osaka is overnight, arriving Kansai (KIX) and departing the next afternoon from Kobe (UKB). It seems that KIX, ITM and UKB airports are part of the greater Osaka area (like the London area airports), so there was no problem arriving at KIX and leaving from UKB, although Kobe is a separate city I think.
- How many pax and how many award miles?
3 passengers, 35,000 miles each, EUR29.81 taxes and surcharges. Amazing deal!
- How many days/weeks/months did you book in advance?
2 months and 11 days.
- Have you been able to book your preferred dates of travel?
Yes, in the end these were exactly the dates I wanted. Part of the work in making such bookings is somehow optimizing the dates to suit everybody. In this case, the layover in Osaka and Kobe is absurdly short, arriving at 21h35 in the evening and leaving at 17h50 the following day. The point was to have the onward flight to Hokkaido included in the mileage price of 35,000 miles without having to pay it separately. I deliberately chose the ANA flight operated by Air Do, because Air Do was originally the airline of Hokkaido and I thought it would be nice to give it a try because my final destination is Hokkaido (I'm not likely to fly much on Air Do in the future). The other options left from KIX airport (ANA Wings) and ITM airport (ANA mainline). All available flights were late in the day (17h50, 19h45 and 20h30, the Air Do one leaves at 17h50). Obviously, I hope to see a bit of Osaka while there, however brief.
- Were you happy with the award booking procedure (e.g. online/by phone)? How often did you have to check/call until you got the seats?
I landed on a smart agent immediately and the whole thing was booked and ticketed in less than 10 minutes. No issues whatsoever piecing together the itinerary segment by segment and inputting the layover with onward travel from a different airport in a different class. So they still have really brilliant agents out there. I called around about 10 o'clock in the morning.
I haven't been able to price up the itinerary because it is difficult to price flights that have mixed classes without calling the airlines. But I could see that BKK-SIN-KIX on SQ in Business was about EUR560. Separately, OSA-CTS ranged from EUR104 to EUR170 for a one way ticket, but that one flight I booked which is operated by Air Do did not show up at all.
One final observation is that, while searching a multitude of flights in and around Japan, you can spend miles on ANA tickets operated by at least half a dozen other airlines. As I remember, other airlines included ANA Wings and Starflyer, the others I can't quite remember just now. I presume these are wet leases or franchises, like in Europe, but they seem to fly more under their own colours and brands. There doesn't seem to be a Business class option within Japan, on M&M at any rate. By the way, what's Air Do like?