Good price for JAL business class tickets US -> Asia?
 

I am long-time lurker, in the process of planning my honeymoon for Jan 2021. We have never flown international business class before, and thought this would be a good opportunity to try it if we can find reasonably priced tickets (I have flown a good amount domestically for work in certain years, so plenty of domestic first upgrades in 2018/19, but never paid for anything more than economy).

We are looking at Austin -> Tokyo -> Singapore -> Austin (connecting back through Tokyo, spending time in each city). Right now, JAL Business Class seems to be by far the cheapest, seeing $3300 round trip for all business class segments from LAX -> Tokyo -> Singapore -> LAX (connecting through Tokyo), then there's a $207 flight (economy) on American round-trip from Austin / LAX with a good amount of buffer and early morning departure (as well as lots of other flights on other airlines on the way to LAX that morning, just in case something mechanical happens last minute and we need to hop on another airline worst case with a last minute fare).

So grand total, $3500, with all of the long-haul segments in business, and just the quick short-haul in the US in economy. This seems like a pretty good deal to me, but given how far out we are and my limited frame of reference not having booked paid business class before, do y'all think it's worth taking the plunge? Does business class, on a decent airline, on this sort of flight ever get much cheaper if you're paying with cash?

This may not be rock bottom price but definitely a decent price

It does, but it's not predictable.

Thanks. What is rock bottom on this sort of route? Would you ever see it below $2,500?

​​​​​​Chinese carriers might be in the $2500 range, but I dunno about JAL and would not expect it. Glad to be corrected though if someone with EF is aware of a fare filing in that price range. If you have an Amex Platinum card, JAL is in the international airline program and so you may get an additional discount.

You might want to consider trying to reposition to Vancouver, which (in my experience) typically has the cheapest J prices to Asia. We've seen $2000 fares from Canada to Tokyo in the past, and I suspect there's a reasonable chance of those sort of deals popping up again. At that rate, it'd probably just be cheaper to buy the Tokyo flight and then buy a separate TYO-SIN ticket.

Tokyo Singapore Tokyo is quite expensive in business class. It would normally come in around 220K yen. though at times you could probably find it in the 180K yen range. Splitting the ticket to add an ex-Tokyo flight is not very likely to save you anything.

Frequent flyer tickets are often a better deal.

I see. I wonder if it might be best for OP to pay cash for the business class ticket to Asia and then use miles to fly TYO-SIN.

absolutely not

I think AS awards still allow a stop in Tokyo if originating from the US.

Thanks all - I ended up taking the plunge on Monday. It seems like $3500, at a minimum, is a pretty decent price for JAL (or another non-Chinese carrier).

That said, I did see today that AA is doing a super cheap 45-55K per direction saver ticket to Japan right now. Anyone else looking at this should consider that, even if like me you don't have the miles, as a quick peak shows you can buy 185K miles (enough for two tickets) for $3,208, so $1,600 per ticket. While in my case, I'd still need to get TYO -> SIN, probably another $800 each, that'd still be a substantial savings at $2400 total per ticket vs. $3500.

Painful to see that now, but I'll live... at least I'm earnings miles on the JAL flight, which I calculate at 22.5K redeemable miles, 45K status qualifying miles on American, and $5.6K qualifying dollars. Enough to get me into their bottom tier with one flight, and likely their second tier with another flight or two.

Also -- appreciate the idea re: Vancouver, but unfortunately Austin to Vancouver is a stop / usually $600+, while LAX is $200 round trip.

I think you're getting a pretty good deal. This past winter AA and JL offered a JFK-TPE r/t in J for $2300, which was a great deal

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/prem...rn-2300-a.html

TPE tends to attract some of the better pricing, and going onwards TPE-SIN is cheap. This was about as low as it will get for a carrier like JL, but no guarantee we'll see a similar sale in the future. As others have mentioned, mainland China carriers may be lower at times, but generally you'll get what you pay for.

OP, I hope you planned enough time in Japan,

I like Singapore but I love Japan trips (19 so far).