Well, in less than a month now I’ll be heading back to Asia. I’ll get back on a Cathay Pacific plane and fly from New York to Vancouver to Hong Kong to Vietnam. With that however, all of my booked travel will come to an end… in Vietnam. So, in order to get back from Vietnam I needed to book a flight home.
I went back and forth on how to get home for a while. At first I thought I was just going to book a ‘cheap’ one-way economy flight, but quickly learned that such a flight didn’t exist. The cash prices for one-way economy flights far exceeded my budget. Next, I thought I’d find a great mileage redemption flight… but again, no such flight existed. I searched for well over a day for award space and couldn’t find anything.
Then, after a few days of searching and choosing different origins and destinations, I found two seats, one in First and on in Business Class on JAL from Tokyo to Chicago. Either flight seemed like a fine option, but I couldn’t immediately decide which one to take. At first I thought the First Class option would be 110,000 AAdvantage miles which I wasn’t ready to spend. So, when I called American I fully planned to book the Business Class seat. However, when I called I was told that First Class was 80,000 miles and Business was 60,000 miles. Both cost the same $50 co-pay so I naturally booked JAL First Class home.
Why I’m Disappointed, For Now
Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled to fly JAL First Class again (don’t worry, review is coming soon-ish), but I’ve already flown JAL First before. Earlier this year I flew JAL First from New York to Tokyo on the 77W. The flight was fantastic and I have no complaints, other than the hangover, but I wish I were flying something different.
Personally, I’d love to find award space on Qatar or Etihad instead of JAL. See, while JAL offers a lovely First Class product, I find it a bit boring. In my opinion, nothing really set it apart from any other airline. On the contrary, Qatar Airways has Q-Suites (which I still haven’t flown) and Etihad has on-board showers. Additionally, both have lounges either in Doha or Abu Dhabi that I haven’t yet visited. Whereas I did have a chance to visit the JAL First Class lounge in Narita. So, while I’m happy to be flying a world-class First Class product, I just wish it were with a different airline than I’ve already flown this year.
Thankfully, because I booked my JAL First Class flight with points, I should have options in the future. As award space pops up between now and mid-July I should have the flexibility to cancel and re-book my flight home. I have this flexibility thanks to my AAdvantage Executive Platinum elite status which waives award mile redeposit fees. This means I can book/cancel as many flights as I want to between now and my travel dates to hopefully get the exact flights I want.
Final Thoughts
I guess what I’m trying to say is that when starting in Asia, I can theoretically take any airline in the world to get from Asia back to the US. I’m happy to go either east or west to get home which means I should have a ton of options.
From what i’ve seen, award space is extremely limited right now being that summer usually means peak travel. Because of this limitation I’m going back to an incredible First Class product with JAL, but I’m a bit disappointed about it. Hopefully some award space on other airlines opens up in the coming weeks. I would would love to finally fly in Q-Suites or The Apartment.
