Not allowed to do turnaround transit in NRT?
 

For background, my wife is immigrating to the US from the Philippines. Originally I had planned to fly to Manila to accompany her back to the US. The Philippines has banned foreigners from the US so that plan is out. Since I miss flying we decided that I will meet her in NRT and accompany her to the US. I booked 2 one way tickets as it was much cheaper than a roundtrip fare and used PointsPlus to upgrade both ways. Transit is allowed in NRT and I would be spending less than 4 hours in the airport as the flight is an immediate return to EWR. I got a call from United saying that I will not be permitted to board because I do not qualify to enter Japan. I tried to explain that I am simply transiting on an immediate turnaround flight. They put me on hold and said I still would not be allowed to board since the transit has to be to a third country and departing and arriving the US means there are only 2 countries involved. This really does not make any sense to me. Has anybody heard something like this before? I am thinking of booking a refundable ticket to a third country but am hesitant since I am not sure what I would do if they deny my boarding in NRT. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

UA is correct. You are not transiting (a return to origin on a separate ticket is not a transit), you have a single ticket whose destination is Japan, and since you are not permitted to enter Japan, you would be denied boarding.

There was a long discussion about a similar situation on the BA board recently.

It is not UA that is responsible for this, but the decisions of the government of Japan.

Turnarounds (including two one-ways) are not considered as transit.

Here's specific language I found. Doesn't necessarily make sense about not being able to just turn around, but Japanese gov't officials can be sticklers about the written word -

"Travelers who are not entering Japan and transferring directly to a third country by transit, are not required to submit any documents and undergo PCR tests."

You're basically using Japan as a meet up point, not a transit. You might be able to get away with one ticket EWR-NRT-EWR. I don't see point of even trying to show up at EWR if UA has already contacted you directly. You think they're going to forget or ignore Japan's rules?

Don't buy a refundable ticket to a third country to fulfil the "requirements" suggested by a UA phone agent. First, that's against most airline's contracts of carriages to buy a ticket you have no intention of using, plus it doesn't facilitate what you want to do (travel to Japan on separate tickets). Phone agents are sometimes not the purveyors of the most accurate info. To be in transit, you need to have two segments on either side of the transit point on one ticket.

Please don't hold me to this: On its surface, it does sound correct. You are indeed not transiting NRT, it is your destination (granted, with a short stay).

As far as others experience, they may have it in a normal environment... but with all the international COVID restrictions (and some of those seem to change daily), I think you will be hard pressed to find much experience.

Why don't you two meet in HNL? or GUM?

UA is right. This is not transit. UA once let me do this to Moscow...and almost got in big trouble.

Her flight is already booked to EWR and I got a great deal on a one way ticket and was able to use PointsPlus to upgrade. The idea was really to help her at immigration and with all her bags. Meeting in HNL or GUM would be like EWR, except I do not get to fly, which I am itching to do. I will likely go to EWR and see what happens, but expecting that I will be denied boarding.

This won't work since your EWR to NRT segment, on its own, would be grounds for denied boarding at the point of origin (EWR).

I agree that I would likely be denied boarding because I have an immediate return flight booked on UA back to EWR. However, if I truly was transiting, for example my original plan to Manila, then I assume UA would not have denied boarding since I would be transiting to a third county,

You could fake it with a ticket to a third country, but I don't recommend it (and this may not be possible if you have the return on a single ticket).

Is there a third country you could fly to, a sort of triangle route? Maybe fly to ICN first, then NRT to catch the flight back?

Agents at airport don't have the information of your immediate turnaround, so as far as they are concerned, your final destination is bound for Tokyo.

While adding an additional onward destination would qualify you for transit, Manilla is closed to foreigners (as you had alluded to in your original post), so you would have a similar fate with a EWR-NRT-MNL ticket when boarding at EWR.

That is actually a good idea and would be legal and work. Thanks for the heads up, I will check on that.

You were lucky UA called you. Same thing happened to me HKG-SGN-HKG, except UA didn't notify me ahead of time, and I didn't get the bad news until attempting to check-in at HKG. Count your blessings: you were forewarned.

This has nothing to do with UA and really belongs in the Japan thread. OP should thank UA for having called. Most carriers would not have caught this until the document check at departure or, if they did, not have called.

As others note, transit has always involved three separate jurisdictions: origin, transit & destination. Here, even if UA researched and saw the return ticket, this would not be a transit.

As others note, OP will need to find a third nation which will permit him to enter and then fly back from there. Even a round-trip to NRT won't work because there is no transit.

I agree it is actually not a UA issue. Would flying EWR to MEX, MEX to NRT, NRT to EWR work? Mexico has no testing requirements so this seems the easiest and quite doable.