risenmyth

Q. New York City (EWR, JFK) to Japan (NRT) @ (August 28/29th - Sept 2nd/3rd)
Is there anyway to catch a RT J seat between these 2 cities for a decent price? I've been primarily looking at EWR-LAX-NRT or EWR-NRT, but the prices are considerably high ($4.4K + EWR-LAX ~= $5-5.7K & $7K respectively).
I was wondering if there was any other routes from East/West U.S. to NRT that boasts a cheaper price for this itinerary.

Now onto the wider scheme of things.

Goal: UA Premier Gold by the end of trip aforementioned
Current PQM/PQD: 9440/0
Goal PQM/PQD: 50000/$6000

From what you see, I have a long road as it's starting from scratch this year. Now onto the trips I have planned and booked:

1. March:
   • EWR-IAD via UA
   • F Class RT
   • PQM/PQD - 640/$390
2. May:
   • JFK-NRT-TPE via ANA
   • Y Class RT
   • PQM/PQD - 4,830(?)/$0
   • Notes: Booked and planned late 2018, hence the incorrect choice of an Y fare and not with UA
   • Other notes: I am actually not sure if the PQM earned with ANA will actually be 4,830. "Flight Miles, Total 4,830 Miles (Per person)" is what is mentioned in the reservation (https://www.ana.co.jp/en/jp/amc/news...p_tekiyou.html) Might be just earned reward miles...
3. June:
   • EWR-IAH via UA
   • F Class RT
   • PQM/PQD - 5,600/$854
4. July:
   • EWR-LAX via UA
   • F Class RT
   • PQM/PQD - 7,362/$1,200

Total PQM/PQD: 23,042/$2,444
So effectively on the safe side, I would need 26,958/$3,556 PQM/PQD to hit my goal.

What would be the best way to accrue that amount of miles within a single trip from New York to Tokyo?

Thank you so much! I can provide additional information if necessary.

sincx

Going to be hard finding a round-trip in business for EWR-NRT/HND for less than $4k on United. Have you searched starting from PHL, PIT, LGA, and other nearby airports that's not a UA fortress hub? Also sometimes starting in Canada can be much cheaper, and then you can just book a separate flight to Canada. Try YYZ or YUL as well.

An additional difficulty is that starting this year, discount business (P fares) no longer earn 200% of actual miles flown in terms of PQMs. P fares now earn 150%. (200% of actual miles flown for EWR-NRT-EWR would be 26,928 miles, basically enough for you. But 150% is nowhere close).

You could try for a EWR-HNL-NRT routing, which if you do it round-trip will get you 26,343 PQMs on a P fare.

Duke787

YYZ - HND is $3.3k for the non-stop on AC or $3.5k for UA (can connect back via EWR on outbound but can't seem to get it via EWR on the return so can't drop the last leg).

Looks like about $200 - 300 for EWR / LGA - YYZ on UA/AC in Y for the short hop up

findark

This. Depending on where you are in the US, YYZ or YVR is always the answer.

onthesam

Look at SLC-NRT

ETA:

NYC-NRT NRT-GUM-NYC
or
NYC-GUM-NRT NRT-NYC

will have to overnight or middle of the night connection in GUM.

risenmyth

Thank you for the valuable input! I did realize that this year was going to be harder due to the 200% -> 150%.
I'm not too sure how to find that layover at HNL, but with the suggestions, I'm looking into YYZ and YVR since the prices seem a lot better with a decent amount of PQM! I'm seeing a few fares $2.7K YVR, $3.5 YYZ

The idea is definitely there and I'm looking up at it as we speak. The small change or tweak would be that I prefer NRT since my stay would be in the Chiba prefecture.
The hop up from NYC to YYZ should be 100% fine! I'm not going to find the layovers annoying since I'd consider this a valuable mileage run.
Thank you for the numbers and response

I'm researching these 2 as we speak. Will run some calculations on PQM and PQD.
Thank you very much!

SLC seems to be around $5-5.5K to NRT. That seems hard to accommodate.
Will look into GUM, if YYZ and YVR are not possible.
Thank you so much!

MysteryTour

I usually find the best TYO business fares out of LAX - lots of competition there. Although I don't see it currently for the dates you mentioned, I often find LAX-TYO for $3500 RT. To get those fares, you need to buy LAX-TYO RT as one ticket and EWR-LAX RT as a separate ticket. Some people here find buying 2 separate tickets for one trip risky, but I do it regularly. That is still not probably going to be 27K miles though.

dvs7310

The GUM suggestion isn't as an origination point, but a transit point. You can force nearly any North America to Japan trip via GUM for quite a few extra miles, doesn't matter if you're originating in YYZ or EWR. Unfortunately the flights to/from GUM aren't nearly as good as going EWR-NRT non-stop on the 77W. GUM to NRT are all 737's with recliners in front and your seats to HNL and GUM will be older style UA business. If your goal is max miles, via GUM is the way to go, but what you gain in miles that way you lose in a bit of comfort and inconvenience of connections on the GUM side.

Repooc17

$3,640: EWR-SFO-HND (outbound) HND-PEK-EWR (return)

https://flights.app.goo.gl/sFGAa

You can also do EWR-PEK-HND HND-SFO-EWR for $5 more, but tricky with less than 2 hours of connection time at PEK. TWOV applies here with either route.

Be careful with TPAC routing on AC. Can't plate on 016 tickets so no PQD, which is essential for OP.

Rowyourboat

aacharya

This seems like a lot of machinations on the OP's part - considering that he or she has months to go to get a cheap MR to get over Gold separately.

risenmyth

Right, that was my initial plan as I saw a LAX-NRT RT w/ ANA or UA for $2.9K, which rose to $3.9K, then $4.4K. I did not jump on the $2.9K fare, regretfully.
The plan was definitely 2 separate tickets as you mentioned, hitting a layover at LAX for a few hours and catching the subsequent flight. EWR-LAX is consistently ~$1.3K for J/F RT for the times I looked for.
But yes, the PQM was still a concern.


I have no gripes about less comfort and connections, but the one thing I don't have is the luxury of a longer layover (stopover). It seems that the GUM connection would be 12h 45m.
That may be a bit of a headache as another constraint to this.


This seems like a great itinerary, however the one issue is that the destination is HND and my main residence and area of concern will be Chiba + Eastern side of Japan. This may not be too accessible coming from HND and the travel coming back and forth.
TWOV shouldn't be an issue as I have a Chinese VISA that isn't expiring anytime soon.
Also missing the PQM by around ~4K


100% makes sense however, as I mentioned above, playing with a 12h 45m layover/stopover is hard to accommodate giving my time constraints.
The Z fares and ~35K PQM seems very appealing though for an additional "few" hours.

For that "same day change at EWR, SFO, or HNL nonstop plan" - exactly how is that plan executed?

risenmyth

Playing with a EWR-YVR-DEN-NRT-SFO-YVR-EWR

• EWR-YVR - $692 for Y
• YVR-XXX-NRT - $2,728 for J

That hits my requirements with ~$3,197 PQD, but it only gets me ~24,097 PQM (as @Rowyourboat mentioned in his/her post previously). Off by 3K.