Originally Posted by
Concerto
One of the things about Japanese domestic flights having Economy class only is that it's very difficult to price up award tickets (or even revenue tickets for that matter) without calling the call center for help. So do Air Do (and presumably ANA flights too) have BoB service then? I notice that my flight to Hokkaido (CTS) lasts 1 hour 45 minutes, so we will see.
ANA has Premium Class and JAL has Class J and First Class on domestic flights. Air Do has a very limited BoB service (onion soup with rice and can of Sapporo Classic beer with cheese according to their website). Travellers can and do buy food and drinks at the airport before boarding from convenience stores where they don’t have to pay ‘airport price’. A couple of FT friends flew from CTS to OKA (the longest domestic flight in Japan of 3.5 hrs) earlier this year and took food from a supermarket with them. Incidentally they only paid US$98.51 each for the ticket!
Checking some of the threads in the Japan forum, one poster, who was asking for advice about visiting North Hokkaido, mentioned he was flying in and out of Hokkaido through airports I had never heard of. Does that mean I could have been smarter and tried somewhere else in Hokkaido as an entry point? I chose Sapporo CTS because it seemed like the main city and a logical place to start a visit to Hokkaido. (As an aside, some of the answers seemed to indicate other posters thought there wasn't much worth seeing in Hokkaido apart from one or two other places, but this belongs in the other forum, obviously).
Hokkaido is a very popular tourist destination but it all depends on what you want to do/see there. I flew to MMB (Memanbetsu) and out of SHB (Nakashibetsu) from HND a few years ago to visit Shiretoko Peninsula - somewhere I would like to return and spend more time. Last year I flew to HKD (Hakodate) for their fish market and the view of the city at night from Mount Hakodate. Earlier this year I organised a
FT Japan Do in Sapporo with visits to Otaru, Noboribetsu Onsen (hot spring) and the Historical Village of Hokkaido.
Originally Posted by
Concerto
As for the itinerary above, I was unable to price it either with Singapore Airlines or Miles & More. It would require two separate tickets, which sort of makes sense. Amazing what we can achieve with award tickets! Singapore Airlines quoted me EUR3,971 on the phone for BKK-SIN-KIX in Business. Although I saw a figure of around 2,000 Euros on Expedia that could be misleading because Expedia often reprices at the last stage and that ticket might not contain any flexibility. But Miles & More tickets are flexible, despite the is a 50 Euro fee, and valid for a year so the higher figure is probably the right one. When I tried Erstattungsfähig Flüge on Expedia, SQ wouldn't price at all. We are talking only as far as KIX here.
If I want to fly one way within East Asia I book an award with avios. I’m flying HND to HKG on JL in business later in the year for 20K avios and 36.10 GBP. M&M award for HND-HKG on ANA would cost 30K miles and 45 GBP.
As for the flight from Kobe to Sapporo, I worked out a value of EUR370 for a flexible ticket. It was a it difficult to tell on the ANA site, but none of the lower economy tickets seemed to come with any flexibility. Ignoring ANA SUPER VALUE, the figure for ANA VALUE was JPY36,470 (€303) and for ANA FLEX was JPY44,670 (€370). Whichever, these partner award ticket can sometimes represent amazing value, not that I would ever had paid the values demanded. So I suppose the value is variable, but it's still an amazing deal.
I think you found a very good deal if your destination is Hokkaido. Some FT friends didn’t make it to the Sapporo Do because it was impossible to find an award to get there. Most of my domestic flights in Japan are on ANA’s Experience Japan Fare of approx. UD$100 (10,800 yen) per segment. The ticket is not flexible but the price is hard to beat. The fare for a shorter distance such as within Hokkaido (e.g. CTS-MMB) starts at 5,400 yen.