whkento

You guys are fillin' my head with all kinds of JGC MR dreams...

btw, I appreciate the research you're doing. ^

JALPak

How about you? Any good MR from NGO?

JALPak

Actually it's 23,080 yen...JAL website updates the surcharge and taxes to 23,080 yen once I clicked the next button...not sure why they can't just show this in the first place. Hopefully 83,080 yen is the final charge because I am not gonna buy a ITM-NRT-LAX ticket to find out

ffs852

Better issue your tickets before April 1st to avoid the fuel surcharge increase.

whkento

I have no idea. But I'm gonna try to find out. Just not sure where/how to start...

JALPak

Um...think about the cheapest domestic fare and do a sector run or international flights that are cheap and required connections Here is an example I just come up with

1x NGO-NRT-HKG-NRT-NGO (59,300 yen)
NGO-NRT: 193 * 2 (Domestic) * 120% (JALCard) + 400 = 863
NRT-HKG: 1,823 * 1.5 (China) * 120% (JALCard) + 400 = 2,697
Sub-Total: (863 + 2,697) * 2 = 7,120 FOPs

3x NGO-NRT-JFK-ORD-NRT-NGO (101,900 yen each)
NGO-NRT: 193 * 2 (Domestic) * 120% (JALCard) + 400 = 863
NRT-JFK: 6,737 * 70% * 120% (JALCard) + 400 = 6,095
ORD-NRT: 6,283 * 70% * 120% (JALCard) +400 = 5,678
JFK-ORD: 719 * 70% * 120% (JALCARD) + 400 = 1,004 (If JALCard promotion doesn't apply, it will earn 903 FOPs)

Sub-Total: 3 * (863 * 2 + 6,095 + 5,678 + 1,004) = 43,401 FOPs

Total FOP: 50,521
Total Mile: 64,385
Total Cost: 365,000 yen

Turns out even if the JALCard promotion doesn't apply to the JFK-ORD flight, you will still get > 50K FOPs

I think you should be able to improve this to make it go a little bit lower...

Remark: ALL NGO-NRT flights are domestic flights, i.e. JL3084, 3086, 3085, or 3083 (see kojiro's remarks below, #22)

kojiro

Hi JALPak: I just noticed one small thing.

If you fly JL8405/053 between NGO and NRT, which you probably will if you are connecting to/from ORD/JFK, then you will not get double points since these flights are considered International.

So it should look more like:

NGO-NRT: 193 * 120% + 400 = 631

Other flights (JL3084, 3086, 3085, 3083) are indeed domestic and earn double points.

kojiro

JALPak

Yes, I assume flying on the domestic flights to/from NGO when I did the calculations, i.e. JL3083-3086. This means staying at NRT for a night on the outbound. I should have mentioned that in my post. Thanks for pointing that out. And in order to earn the 400 FOPs bonus on the JFK-ORD flight, it has to be JL-coded.

By the way do you have any good suggestions on ex-Tokyo routes? It's harder to get a cheap MR from Tokyo because my suggestions have been exploiting the fact that the domestic connections is almost free and you can get a lot of FOPs from flying them

whkento

Okay, I'll be flying NGO-NRT-ORD-CLT round trip April-May. This should net me a little over 21,000 FOPs if I calculated correctly (please feel free to correct me).

My wife wants to take a vacation to a good scuba diving spot for obon (August), so I'll add those points, whatever they may be. (Any recommendations?)

THEN I'll have to figure out the necessary miles to get the magic 50k. I like the looks of that Hong Kong trip, though I may want to do a couple of trips to LAX instead. It seems that there are often some good deals to LAX, leading to a better miles/yen proportion. Any suggestions?

fumitani

Bora Bora? Maldives? Marutius? go as far as you can

whkento

Something interesting I just noticed about my flights in Apr/May...

NGO-NRT is JL8405 (Int'l), but NRT-NGO is JL3085 (Domestic). I'm guessing that's because the return trip will be over two days (Int'l date line crossing). Does that mean I get the double points for NRT-NGO?

whkento

I hear ya', but our total vacation time will be severely limited by the obon holiday. My wife can NOT take any extra days off beyond the holiday dates (she has her own business). With that in mind, we have to balance travel time vs. fun time.

I'll take a look at Maldives, Hawaii, Guam, Saipan, etc. and try to find that balance point. Also gotta think about hotel, etc. costs (I don't have a bottomless wallet, unfortunately).

JALPak

How did you get 21,000 FOPs?

Assumptions:
1. You take the domestic NGO-NRT flights (which probably is not the case on the outbound unless you are willing to stay at NRT for a night)
2. You qualify for the 120% FOP JALCard promotion
3. ORD-CLT flight qualifies for 120% JALCard FOP promotion which I am not sure
4. Flying on economy class which earn you 70% miles.

Domestic flights NGO-NRT: 863 FOPs
NRT-ORD: 5,678 FOPs
ORD-CLT: 592 * 70% * 120% (JALCard) + 400 (FOPs bonus) = 897 FOPs

Roundtrip = 14,876 FOPs

Since you outbound is on an "international" domestic flight, but inbound is domestic, the total should be 14,645 FOPs

JALPak

And even more interesting is technically you should earn 70% miles on that "international" flight. But somehow JAL website says you will earn 100%. So I will assume 100% mileage and FOPs for now...If they give you less, just complain and point them to their website

But yes, your return flight will give you 2x FOPs because it's a real domestic flight.

fumitani

I would suggest going to some resort in Indonesia or Malaysia or Thailand, since airfares won't be skyrocket high during Obon. You will still get about 5000FOP flying between this, and we can help you suggest MR's later. We are always here to help you complete your goal