Love Your Suitcase | Travel Planning & Points Optimization Expert

It’s time to tell the story where, when I recounted it to my friends and family, they looked at me like I had gone insane and asked why I would do something so ridiculous. But really, this is a story about how you can buy yourself time to get an awesome deal on business class flights to and from Japan, even if there is no award availability when you’re looking   It was spring 2024 and I was planning my husband’s and my trip to Japan for April 2025 and I already had our flight to Tokyo booked. That had worked out without much drama. If you want to read more about the whole trip and how I booked it with points, you can do that here.

Admittedly, when I booked my flight to Tokyo, I had only concepts of a plan when it came to getting a flight home. My strategy was to build up as many Capital One and Amex points as possible in the next few months, and wait for a surprise drop of award availability. But as time went on, there were no drops for when we needed them. Around the holidays, I began to worry. I can be flexible, but with a full time job in healthcare, that flexibility diminishes as time goes on. I also couldn’t exclusively wait until the 14 days window when last minute tickets might begin to appear because we would already be in Japan. 

Booking Plan B First

In early February I did the sensible thing and booked a refundable Delta flight back to hold us over while I would continue to scour for deals. It was about $1,600 for 2 people one way in economy (ouch!). At this point, I had only Chase, Capital One, and Amex points. But as anyone who has thought about travelling to Japan on points knows– American Airlines points are king. They have the most access to award flights at one of the best rates: 60,000 points for a one way business class ticket. But being so valuable, they are also hard to earn. You have to fly with American a lot, or spend with them through their shopping portal or credit card.

At the end of February, I saw an elevated sign up bonus for their AAdvantage Platinum Select Card. Normally only 50,000 points, it was now 75,000. It became a no-brainer and I immediately signed my husband and I up to each get a card. We hit the sign up bonus spend requirement within a week for both cards, and our points were available on our first statements at the end of March. 

There was nothing in business class available at that point, but I would not be deterred. I did see a premium economy flight available direct from Tokyo to JFK for 45,000 points each. Premium economy is way better than economy, especially at the price I had paid. I booked that right away, cancelled our refundable Delta flight, and continued to keep my eye out for something better.

As we were about to leave for Japan, I checked our return flight on the AA app and saw that they had an upgrade offer for $800 per person to business class on the way back. This offer had started at $1,600 per person, so it had come down a good bit. Once we got off of our business class flight in Tokyo and got to our hotel, we knew there was only one option. The upgrade offer was still there at the same price, and we happily paid.

Watchful Waiting Pays Off

If only I were calm, cool, and collected enough to let the story stop there. I checked daily during our trip to see if any points deals would become available for business class. Yes, we had secured business class already, but it would be so much better to have that refunded in travel credit to use for another trip and use the points I had earned for the flight. Suddenly, it was the morning of our departure. We’re enjoying a leisurely breakfast and I see that the same flight we are scheduled to take that night is available for 60,000 AA points. 

Breakfast was suddenly paused. I chatted up the AA chat agents on the app, and luckily, the one I got knew exactly how to help. I had him put the award flight on hold for us. I had to then cancel the flight we were scheduled to take in just a few hours so that my points would be immediately redeposited into our accounts. Then, I had to pay the taxes and fees ($5.60 each) for the award flight on hold and then, finally, it was ticketed to us. Simple really! All of this took about 30 minutes, and I was sweating the entire time. But I had done it, and once we were home we submitted refund requests for the upgrade we had purchased. 

To cap this all off and prove that it was, in fact, worth the trouble, as soon as we got our refunds, I used half of it to buy tickets to visit friends in Colorado a few months later, saving us (or, still spending but in a different way?) about $800 in costs we were going to have to pay up anyway.