Darn, it would be awesome to be able to stop-over in SEA or SFO first and then continue on but I know I can't do two stopovers. I might be even willing to pay $$ for the positioning flight in Y for the positioning flight when they have their deals. Or...just eat the 25K difference and stop-over in US one leg, then in Japan the outbound leg. Of course getting F on Alaska going to the mainland is like impossible.

I don't think they will let you fly HNL-SFO-TYO on a single award regardless of stopovers. That's a lot of backtracking.

You can just buy a flight HNL-SFO or OAK though. If you have status those are easy upgrades and you can find $200 fares. Or you can splurge and spend $650 on a UA or HA lie-flat. Then you can spend as long as you want in SFO and fly SFO-HND // NRT-TPE on a F award (well worth the extra 10k miles for SFO-HND in F IMO). Honestly if you are going to spend a few days in SF the airfare will seem like a drop in the bucket compared to the hotels :) (Same with Tokyo)

This is where you are wrong. Hawaii/Mexico-USA-Asia is completely allowed (I have in fact booked awards with final destination SJD and a long SEA stopover). In fact it's the ONLY way you can book an AS award with CX into or out of those award zones because CX doesn't fly to HNL or MEX.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...7b7cb9ae60.png
JL is also part of the award chart for Asia-Hawaii. Try using the web engine multicity to go HNL-LAX/SFO(stop)-TYO. You'll see...

Haha..thanks for the options. This will probably be in a couple years, so I was planning on building up my Hyatt nest egg haha to help cut down on hotel costs.

I don't think they will let me "stop-over" in SFO (I got an error when I tried to multi-city it) BUT the weird thing is they are happy to route me through the mainland and fly to asia using AA on a single ticket (no multi-city for stop-overs).:confused:

I got a bunch of errors when I tried...maybe I am not doing it right. Do you have an example of your magical touch?:D

I'm not finding JL J, but here you go.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...0ef934bddb.png

These were the search terms.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...d80eac7a0c.png

Hmmm... I've tried this before and it's never worked. I need to try harder.

Using the stopover on the US side and not the Asia side (and just use Avios+cash for the >2k mile flights to end up in JL/CX J, plus you could fly MH I guess) is a way to get pretty good value, and the backtracking is VERY flexible on AS. I've done stuff like DUS-ORD(AA J)-SEA(stop, AS Y because irrops)-SJD(AS F), LAS-SEA(stop)-LAX(AS F)-HKG-BKK(CX F) (and it was originally booked KOA-SEA-LAX-HKG-BKK until plan changes nuked the Hawaii trip), MEX-DFW-SEA(stop, AA Y/F)-SEA-PHX(AS F), HKG-LAX-SEA(AA F)-DCA(AS F).

Really, stopover in AS hubs (effectively a free one-way for Mexico and Hawaii to add to a Europe/Asia trip, if you can find space) is a hidden superpower for AS awards.

Dear bloggers: please quote the FT post as credit when you do your circle and red arrow post. Thanks! :D

I recently booked a JL/AS all J/F award GMP-HND-JFK-LAX-GDL. HNL was also an option. In January, I flew JL J/F HKG-HND-JFK (2 Month Stop) JFK-LAX-PVR, only the LAX-PVR was in Y but I was upgraded before check-in. JFK-LAX-HNL is pretty significant backtracking. ;)

James in Kigali