How We Booked Roundtrip Flights to Asia on Points and Miles

Our oldest turns 16 this year. Last year, when we were talking about this big upcoming birthday, we asked him what trip he wanted to take. His top choice was Japan. Well, I was happy to oblige… using points and miles, of course! Because if we were paying the full cash price out of pocket, there’s absolutely no way we’d be able to afford it. So, thank goodness we don’t have to.

To top it off, he’s a big Disney fan (we all are!), so I figured if we’re going to go all the way to Tokyo, we might as well tack on Hong Kong and Shanghai so that we can hit all three Asia Disney parks while we’re there.

And now here we are, a year later, having booked a two-week trip to Asia worth over $20,000 for just $1,400 out of pocket. Crazy! Some of that is flight savings, and some of it is hotel. For today, let’s go over the flights we booked.

Flights

We live a few hours from Los Angeles, so we typically drive down there for long-haul flights. The flight options are much better than those at our smaller, local airport.

Los Angeles to Tokyo

For the first leg of our trip, we’re flying from LAX to HND. From the beginning of planning, I knew that American Airlines was one of the best ways to book flights between the U.S. and Japan. Flights are a standard 35,000 points. For my family of six, that meant I needed 210,000 American Airlines miles.

There are three main card options for earning AA miles:

• Barclays AAdvantage® Aviator® Red World Elite Mastercard®. This card is great because it earns 60k American Airlines miles when you just make one purchase on the card and pay the $99 annual fee.
• Citi®/ AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard®. This card earns 50,000 AA miles when you spend $2,500 in three months. No annual fee for the first year.
• Citi®/ AAdvantage Business™ World Elite Mastercard®. This card earns 65,000 AA miles when you spend $4,000 in four months. No annual fee for the first year. It also doesn’t count against Chase’s 5/24, which is great.

Ryan and I both opened the Barclays AA card and the Citi Business AA card. We spent some of these miles on our Ireland trip, but the rest were for Asia. Because these cards earn AA miles, there is no need to transfer any points. Once we met the spending requirements, the miles were deposited into each of our AA accounts.

Award flight calendars open around 11 months ahead of time, but I began searching well before that so I could get an idea of what our flight options were. Once the calendars opened, I knew exactly what I wanted to book.

Ryan had more miles than I did (because he also received some referral points), so he booked four of our tickets, and I booked two of them. I used the AA chat to link our reservations so that they know we’re traveling together.

RELATED: Best Airline Credit Cards

Tokyo to Shanghai

The second leg of our trip is a flight from Tokyo to Shanghai. I used multiple award search tools plus manual searching through multiple airlines to decide what our best option would be. We had both opened an American Express® Business Gold Card early last year with the goal of using the points for Asia flights.

So, I took a look at Amex’s transfer partners and also searched on Roame.travel and awardtool.com. I found a few options, but I knew that British Airways wouldn’t show up on those search tools. British Airways is part of OneWorld Alliance, along with American Airlines, Japan Airlines (JAL), and Cathay Pacific (and others). I knew that booking through BA but flying on one of the Asian airlines might be a good option, and it turned out that I was right.

I found flights booked through British Airways, but flying on JAL for 11,000 Avios and $68 per person.

If you’re interested, here are all of the cards that earn Amex Membership Rewards®:

Personal cards:

• The Platinum Card® from American Express
• American Express® Gold Card
• American Express® Green Card*

*All information about American Express® Green Card has been collected independently by The Traveling Hansens. American Express® Green Card is no longer available through The Traveling Hansens.

Business cards:

• The Business Platinum Card® from American Express
• American Express® Business Gold Card
• The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express

RELATED: Business Cards Are Easier Than You Think

Shanghai to Hong Kong

Our flight from Shanghai to Hong Kong is the only piece of the puzzle that isn’t finalized yet. However, I have a plan. The cash rates are relatively low, with prices anywhere from $100-$150 per person. I have a tracker on both Google Flights and Capital One Travel to keep an eye on prices and will book with cash once those trackers say it’s a low price.

Ryan and I each have a Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card that comes with an annual $300 travel credit, so I will book our flights (three on his account and three on mine) so that I can use each of our credits. This credit should cover the cost of four or five of the flights, and the rest will just be out-of-pocket.

Hong Kong to Los Angeles

Finally, our flights home. For those, I did the same thing as I did when booking our flights from Tokyo to Shanghai and took advantage of British Airways’ low points prices and airline alliance partners.

This time, I booked through British Airways, but we’re flying on Cathay Pacific. Our flights were 36,250 Avios and $170 per person. Taxes are higher on British Airways than on many other airlines, so that’s not ideal. However, the points prices are lower than most other airlines, plus they’re one of Amex’s transfer partners, so we had the points available.

Wrapping Up

By the time we travel, this trip will have been two years in the making. As a big family, it takes a lot of planning and a lot of points to do a big trip like this! We try to book things around a year in advance, which means we need to earn the points before that. So it takes time. But the whole trip has come together nicely, and we are all so excited to go!