Last year, we booked a JFK-HND (3 day layover) HND-SYD trip in JAL J in September 2022. We were hoping Japan would have opened up fully long before now, but it is not looking good. Unfortunately I booked this award through CX so changing flights is likely not going to be easy especially given how scarce J transpacific awards are.

So what we did was book a separate roundtrip HND-GMP-HND during the 3 day layover, such that we are never in HND for longer than 24 hours. This will involve an overnight layover which sounds terrible but we will endure.

My question is: our JFK-HND flight is on JAL, and HND-GMP flight is on ANA. Would it be possible to pick up our luggage when we land at HND and bring it onto the ANA flight to GMP, or would that require passing through passport control which is not possible because we won't have a business/tour group visa? We are going to Australia for a month and it will be hard to manage without a checked bag. If we cannot pick up our luggage we will need to look into creative solutions such as mailing our luggage to Australia but that sounds like a nightmare!