Questions and Answers

Hi!

I am planning to go to the tokyo olympics and have decided that flying ANA using membership rewards points is my best best of hoping for a business class seat! I am worried about the award seats selling out so I want to book my flights on the first day possible….can I book it 1 year prior to my departure date? I would be trying to fly to tokyo on July 18, 2020 and return around August 1 or second. Do I have to wait until August to start getting on flight waitlists?

Also, any thoughts on the availability of hotels with points in tokyo during the games? Seems like a long shot to me but I am not very good at hotel points!

Thanks

Mrock

How far in advance you can book depends on what mileage currency you use. The obvious choice for you would be flights on ANA. With ANA you can book flights 355 days in advance. You can transfer Amex MR points directly to ANA BUT you might get more value transferring them to, say, Singapore, Avianca or Virgin Atlantic. If you do transfer to one of these partners you’ll be constrained by how far in advance those programs allow you to book. So if they only allow you to book 340 days in advance (just an example) there would be a 10-day period where ANA is offering an award flight that the other airline can’t book yet. If it costs significantly more points (or $$ in taxes/fees) to book directly on ANA you may consider the partner (again, just an example) – you’ll just need to balance that for yourself.

I suspect that ANA and other carriers servicing that area during the Olympics may not offer any or very few premium cabin award seats if history is any indication. Get started as soon as possible don’t wait around hoping things will open up. If you find award options, they certainly can be booked upwards to a year in advance, depending on the airline. Good luck with your arrangements.

If you’re not on the mailing list for Spencer Howard’s Award Alerts, you may want to join and see if he’ll send you the alert from today about award availability on Asiana to Seoul. From there you could buy a cheap ticket to Tokyo. Spencer’s website is [URL]http://straighttothepoints.co[/URL]