businesstraveller2

I am flying into NRT in a couple of months from LAX in C. We need to get to Sapporo that night and there is one flight that goes 2:25 minutes after the UA scheduled arrival time. Is this enough time to clear immigration, customs, security, for the next flight? US Passport holders.

I did some searches on the fora and could not find this - and I figured it might be somewhat airline specific. We are coming in on UA and it looks like the outbound ANA flight is in the same terminal 1S as the incoming UA flight.

Thanks for any advice especially from people who have done this route.

Also any advice about how to link tickets if possible between the UA international flight and the domestic flight. My sponsors in Sapporo, who are paying for my C ticket from LAX, are asking me to book directly through the ANA website. I will call the 1P line to see what they have to say but thought I'd check the forum as well.

VTHokieFlyer

at the beginning of Sept I flew to NRT, took me about 10 minutes to go through immigration and customs... In my 6 times going through NRT over the last year its never taken me more than 20 minutes to get through but I've never had to connect to a domestic flight, I would think you'd be fine.

are you buying 2 separate tickets?

businesstraveller2

Thanks. Yes buying two separate tix, although I will ph UA 1P desk and ask about adding it onto my current reservation. Am travelling with Mr. BT2 who has a FF ticket on same flight from LAX purchased with CO miles through *A. So it may be harder to add on to his ticket. Mine is a discount biz fare ticket purchased through .bomb. UA has a note in my file that we are traveling together. The host in Japan is paying for my ticket and they have some complicated rules about how to buy the domestic ticket so I may not have a lot of control over that.

username

I would guess that buying 1 ticket on a through fare would be a lot cheaper than buying 2 tickets. It also makes things easier if things go wrong.

ORDnHKG

Buying one ticket or two tickets is irrelevant, as UA never been able to issue NH boarding pass even if it is one ticket. Everytime I went thru NRT, I had to go to NH transfer desk, show the agent my eticket receipt, still need for her to type 15 min in order to issue NH boarding pass.

businesstraveller2

Well we needed the two biz tix to japan and one was using CO miles at the saver rate and we could only get NRT at the time it was too far in advance to book through to CTS. So we did that and now we have to book the CTS portion. Even at Y fare it's still modest compared to the cost of transpac biz.

sinoflyer

Once you purchased your U.S.-NRT ticket, it is fait-accompli and cannot be "linked" to the NRT-CTS ticket that you plan to buy now. Linking reservations only works in the area of transferring bags, etc. I think your only option now is to refund/reissue your current NRT ticket in exchange for a U.S.-CTS through ticket.

Weyland Yutani Corp

Absolutely enough time to connect. NRT = a very efficient airport. I connected to TPE in April in about 20 mins.

businesstraveller2

I just called UA 1P desk today. We can buy a Japan Airpass through the *A network to add domestic flights on ANA. You have to be a nonresident of Japan and be flying international into the country on a *A carrier. Still waiting from UA for pricing, but the ANA website lists the ticket as around $130 or so O/W. You have to buy the international ticket first and then can add up to X number of domestic flights inside Japan.

sinoflyer

Thanks for the info. This sounds like a great deal, especially for reaching places that the Shinkansen can't, in a timely manner anyway. I'll check if it's valid for OKA, because I'm headed there soon.

businesstraveller2

Just bought the japan airpass tickets today. Each one was just shy of $300 including tax and everything. This was for one person RT from NRT to CTS on ANA. I had to call UA 1P desk to make reservation (although a regular desk would probably work too) and they called me back 24 hrs later with pricing. They had the Indian call ctr call me back and I could not understand what they were saying due to a combo of accent and bad connection/time delay. So I hung up and rephoned in on the 1P line, getting someone domestic who took care of the transaction. The ticket/receipt is now available online on .bomb but I needed to know the UA conf number in order to pull up the tix - they do not show under my "reservations" in the MP page. Y fare price on ANA is over $700 RT so this seems pretty good to me especially since that was all that was showing on the regular ANA web page in the US. *A has airpass deals for lots of different countries I will check this out when I go to Australia and also to France later on next year. I need domestic tix on both of those trips.

According to the web you need to be a resident of another country than Japan, you need an international ticket into Japan on a *A carrier, and you have to buy the Japan Airpass tickets before you take the international flight (i.e. buy them from the US side or wherever you are located). There are also blackout dates but not the days I am traveling.

DH77024

I am traveling TPE-NRT-IAH in J, TPE-NRT segment with UA, and NRT-IAH segment with CO.

Connect time is 1hr 35 minutes--I believe UA and CO are in the same wing of Terminal 1 (South wing)--will the transit be relatively simple?

wxguy

It's no different than UA>UA. CO's gates are adjacent.

You will exit your UA plane, go upstairs, clear security, go downstairs, and find your CO gate. If there's no security line, this can be done in 10 minutes. As a J passenger, you can use the priority security line, which is to the right as you enter the chutes.

businesstraveller2

I wanted to update on our trip. Everything worked well. The japan airpass was great and when we got to NRT on the outbound, they directed us to the ANA *A lounge where we had plenty of time to have a bite to eat and shower etc. Clearing customs in Japan took almost no time at all. They were very efficient. The ANA connection lounge was great and they told us when we had to go to get our flight to Sapporo.

On the return we had a long layover at NRT. We arrived at around 930 AM with a 430pm departure. The only problem here was that the UA ticket counter does not open until 1230 and there is no lounge outside security. We had not checked in for UA so we were stuck at NRT for three hours. But there is a lot to do we discovered the 5th floor where there is an outdoor observation deck and the weather was nice so we sat out there for a while. Then we went through the shops and finally hung out at a restaurant and had lunch for about 1:30. Finally we got to check in and were able to go to the RCC and hang out there for the rest of the day. Had a shower got some work done and then boarded for LAX. That was the longest tues I've every had - 41 hours for one day due to the time change and crossing international date line - woke up in Sapporo, spent a number of hours in NRT and eventually found myself at LAX and finally home in pacific time.

Other than having that long day at NRT I found the Japan Air Pass to be a very good option for booking domestic travel within japan in conjunction with a *A flight from the US. Especially since our UA flight was in C but we did not need C for short hops in japan and just needed a reasonably priced Y ticket.

Also I should add we got the NRT<-> CTS tix for approx $300 USD RT. Another interesting observation not listed in seat guru. the seat guru website said the ANA domestic seats were all 16.5" across which I though was rather tight. Turns out upon inspection the middle seat is wider than the aisle or window. I'd put it easily at 18" across. I've never seen that in the USA and I thought this was an interesting idea because suddenly the middle seat becomes more popular due to its increased width. Our flights were not very full so we had choices and I ended up taking a middle because it was more comfortable. I wrote to seatguru about this but as of today they have not added it to the website for ANA.

mobilebucky

Glad everything works out, next time if you have the same problem, instead of stay at the airport, put all you luggage in the locker and take the local train and check out Narita town.