Booking Japan: A Money and Miles Deep Dive

My family recently enjoyed a ten-day trip to Japan, a journey pieced together with a wild mix of money and miles. Here, I’ll break down the exact method to my madness so you can get a sense of what it takes to get a family of four to Japan for a luxury summer trip – using credit card points and miles.

Before I break it all down..

Here is our grand total out-of-pocket expenses, including credit card points AND cash:

• Is this a lot of money and a lot of miles? Yes.
• Could we have done this trip far more economically? Yes. However, this is why I love points and miles. It allowed us to travel much more luxuriously than we ever could have afforded otherwise! Let’s take a look at what this trip would have cost if we had paid the cash price for everything:

So, how did we manage to swing a $47,493 trip for $4999?

Deep Dive Step 1: The Flight

• We are based in San Diego, so these required a positioning flight.
• Our original plan was to spend an additional year working on increasing our points balances so we wouldn’t need to purchase points to top off our accounts. However, Japan Airlines opened a ton of award availability for four people on the same flight and I went full YOLO mode. It was 100% an impulse purchase.
• Japan had been on my radar for a while. I knew we would probably end up booking through Alaska. So, I had spent at least a year focusing on building up our Alaska miles stash. Here is what player 2 and I were working with:

A few notes about our Alaska miles

• We each opened a Bank of America Alaska Airlines credit card when the sign-up bonus was elevated (70k points).
• My husband later received a targeted bonus of 3x on all purchases for six months. We were able to rack up a TON of points this way.
• All our online purchases for the entire year were made through the Alaska Airlines shopping portal.
• Our combined grand total of Alaska miles = 312k.

How we booked our flights

• Round-trip tickets in lie-flat business class were 120k Alaska miles + $76 (taxes) each.
• 120k miles x 4 people = 480k + $304 in taxes.
• We had a combined total of 312k points, putting us short by 168k points (!!).
• There was a 60% mileage purchase bonus happening, which helped a lot.
• All in – our family of four flew round-trip business class for a grand total of 480k points and $3407.
• The cash value for these flights was $9267 per person round-trip ($37,068 for a family of four).

Deep Dive Step 2: The Hotels

We spent a total of nine nights in Japan – four of those were in Tokyo and five were in Kyoto.

Park Hyatt Tokyo

• We each opened the Chase World of Hyatt credit card for a 60k point sign-up bonus.
• Standard award rooms at the Park Hyatt Tokyo were 30k per night. The rooms are advertised as two twin beds but are actually two full beds. We reached out to the hotel ahead of time to get confirmation that two adults and two children could stay in this room. This room was tight but we made do.
• My P2 had Globalist status at the time so I transferred my 60k points to his account, using the points combining request form, and he made the booking.
• All in we stayed four nights at The Park Hyatt Tokyo for 120k Hyatt points and $0.
• The cash value for this room was $775 per night ($3100 for four nights).

The Ritz-Carlton Kyoto

• We each opened the Bonvoy Business American Express card for a sign-up bonus of 125k points each.
• P2 already had 150k Marriott points from the sign-up bonus on a personal card he opened in 2021.
• I transferred my points to P2’s account using Marriott’s online transfer tool.
• We didn’t have enough points to cover the entire stay so we opted for the points + cash upgrade option.
• Don’t forget to book at least five nights to take advantage of Marriott’s 5th night free deal.
• We booked the deluxe two double bed room and paid an additional $100 per night to convert the couch into a twin bed (an annoying charge, but worth it).
• All in we stayed five nights at the Ritz-Carlton Kyoto (side note – I LOVED this hotel. It is definitely in my top 5 places I have ever stayed) for 352k Marriott points and $1592.
• The cash value for this room was $1465 per night ($7325 total for five nights).

In Conclusion

This Japan trip was incredible. Our flights and hotels were luxury all the way, as the cash price shows. Would I have preferred a heftier points balance, thus eliminating the need to purchase points to top off our accounts? Sure. But that award availability was too good to pass up. Zero regrets!