cwerdna

(I've been to Japan 4x, just never to Nagasaki or Fukuoka. Closest I've been there was Hiroshima.)

I'm looking to fly to Japan from SFO (or surrounding airports like SJC or OAK) to Japan for Tokyo Motor Show (Oct 29th thru Nov 8th, will attend 2-3 days), Battleship Island near Nagasaki (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashima_Island) and some other sightseeing, where possible.

Unfortunately, Nagasaki is WAY far away from Tokyo and by the fastest allowed shinkansen that the Japan Rail Pass allows, it's a long ride back and forth, probably ~9+ hours each way via Hikari.

So, I was thinking of flying to either Fukuoka or Nagasaki first (I was able to get a seat on a boat tour to Battleship Island on Oct 29th), then taking a one way domestic flight to Haneda or Narita. It seems like domestic plane travel in Japan is quite pricey, and I wanted to avoid doing a two-way.

Unfortunately, when I use Kayak to search and uncheck all Chinese and Taiwanese airlines and Asiana, the shortest flights seem to stop in Haneda or Narita anyway and are $1190-$1300 or so, one way. So, it seems like I've saved no $. And, they end up being 14.5 to 16.5 hour duration trips.

There are some much cheaper ways (below $1000), but the trips are a bit nutty w/durations between 18 and 29 hours because they fly to Manila, Incheon, Taipei, Hong Kong, etc. and require a change of plane(s).

From http://www.fuk-ab.co.jp/english/network_int.html, it seems like the only US city that regularly flies to/from FUK is Honolulu. Delta seems to do that but the flights were crazy long (30+ hours total duration).

Any suggestions? Are there any other airports near Nagasaki that are better served by US cities? Or, will I have to bite the bullet and change planes in Haneda/Narita, take a domestic flight or spend a lot of time on the train?

nishimark

Have you checked Korean/Asiana to FUK via Seoul?

abmj-jr

Fly Peach to FUK.

http://www.flypeach.com/home.aspx

< 7,100 yen basic economy. < 9,200 yen E+.

armagebedar

HA DL is the only airline flying direct to FUK from the US. If you don't mind going around the long way, KL also flies from AMS -- but not daily. Your best option is to fly via TYO, OSA, or ICN (or HKG if you don't mind significant backtracking).

If you have Avios, a HND-NGS or HND/NRT-FUK flight should be 4,500 points each way. You can book from 2 months prior to departure.

cwerdna

I would rather avoid Asiana given what was uncovered after the 777 crash at SFO (e.g. pilot training and experience w/manual landings), which is esp. unusual since we don't hear of crashes at SFO.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Fr..._and_accidents, the last crash there was in 1972.
Interesting... Will look into this.

HA? Hawaiian Airlines? If so http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/b...l?id=247364161, claims they stopped.

Hmmmm.... Thanks. Will look further into what you mention.

Don't have Avios. Never heard of them.

evergrn

It seems like you're looking up one-way prices only. Have you priced this out by building multi-destination or open-jaw itineraries? I do US-HKG-JPN, and there're occasionally instances where SEA>(via NRT)>HKG>NRT>SEA is cheaper than SEA<>NRT. You never know. However, if you price it out one-way, certain airlines are predictably very expensive. None of the US airlines offer competitive US-Jpn one-way fares. Ones that do are all non-Japanese Asian carriers (SQ, OZ, Korean, etc). Sometimes AC. Of course, none of them fly nonstop from SFO (I presume that's your base) to Jpn. I don't think you're going to find reasonable fares by trying to book SFO>FUK/Nagasaki one-way, then TYO>SFO one-way, while trying to avoid flying Asian carriers.

Actually, this is the kind of trip where I'd definitely think about using miles. It'll be 70k UA saver award in Y to do SFO>Kyushu>TYO>SFO, subject to avail. Also, intra-Jpn award tix is only 5k UA miles one-way and readily available.

You can also look into separate tix for SFO<>TYO then TYO<>Kyushu. As abmj-jr said, Jpn domestic travel's no longer expensive w LLC springing up. You could travel by train, esp if you want to stop by a couple places in between Nagasaki and Tokyo. Tokyo>Nagasaki is a long ways by train, but still manageable in one day, I think. I just did Otaru>Tokyo this summer by train (left Otaru ~noon) and that's even longer. But flying might be cheaper than the price of Jpn Railpass.

Q Shoe Guy

Nope it is DELTA (DL) to HNL, use them for freight all the time !

cwerdna

evergrn: I have tried multi-destination fares a little. My "home base" is SJC, but for international flights, I most often have to resort to SFO.

I'd rather avoid Asiana, China Airlines (of Taiwan) and all China-based airlines. I'm not against Asian carriers, in general.

As for miles, I only have just below 30K United miles. I'm not like many (most?) Flyertalkers.

Yeah, in the past, I've bought the Japan Rail Pass and did Tokyo to Kyoto to Hiroshima and all the way back to Tokyo. I just would rather not blow almost 2 whole days on train travel time.

Will look into some of your suggestions.

cwerdna

Yeah... but from SFO, SJC and OAK, via http://www.delta.com/, it usually turns up $1100+ one way flights that range from ~20 hours to over 40 hours, partly due to long layovers (9-20 hour) somewhere like LAX or HNL.

Q Shoe Guy

If you are flying from the San Francisco area I suppose UA (as someone has mentioned) would be the quickest via KIX and then back from NRT. I would look at LLC flights from KIX to NGS and then NGS to HND ( Skymark flies the route, for 12,000-14,000 JPY OW). I lived there for many years, and still go there for business regularly. You could also rent a car, and drive from Nagasaki city to Fukuoka(then take a plane to HND), lots of great places to explore in Nagasaki Prefecture and Saga Prefecture.

Q Shoe Guy

I am aware of that, and was not implying that you should fly DL to FUK via HNL. Just correcting our fearless leader !

shinjukuflyer

30K is plenty. You only need 10K for a round trip between Nagasaki and Tokyo.

If I were you I'd keep things simple. Fly in and out of Tokyo, and make your way to Nagasaki separately. Either by using United miles, or by taking advantage of ANA or JAL's Visit Japan deals, where they let you take one-way domestic flights for 10,000 yen.
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2364.html
From experience, this isn't actually enforced. I booked HND-NGS for October travel in July.

evergrn

i don't know about Avios, but I recently discovered that you can only book intra-Jpn award travel on NH (and its subsidiaries/codeshares) using UA miles 2 months or less prior to the flight.

shinjukuflyer

Ah thanks for that info, didn't know about UA rules. Though OP should be okay either way as 2 months out at this point would put them in November.

For Avios, the 2-month rule doesn't apply. I can go to ba.com and book dates for Feb 2016 right now if I want. The Flyertalk BA forum in fact lists the same rule but other members have pointed out it's incorrect.

evergrn

I'm not sure this is UA rule as much as it's probably more of NH's current policy to not release UA award seat inventory until 2 months before.