Brisbane or Sydney to Sapporo

[FBS1960]

Looking at options for my wife and I for travel on 4/1/16 to Sapporo. Prefer J class and am Platinum with QF with around 150K of points and also gold with VA with minimal points

Questions:
Is it worth considering using points for upgrade from either E or PE to J?
Is it better value to pay the cash and get the points and SC's?
Consider J class with another airline?

Thanks in advance.
FBS

 

[ozbeachbabe]

There is only one morning flight on NH at 1005 NRT/CTS. In the evening NH have another flights at 1855 & JAL have one at 1840.

Not sure whether you live in BNE or SYD however maybe you could fly ex SYD to HND on QF then you've got heaps of flights HND/CTS to connect to on both JL or NH. If you book a separate ticket HND/CTS on JL QF will through check the bags to CTS & give you the JL boarding pass as JL is One World, although you'd still need to clear customs in HND first.

If you have to connect from BNE then it's not too much of a drama doing a BNE/SYD prior to an overnight flight SYD/HND as opposed to flying SYD/BNE after an overnight HND/SYD flight.

If you fly BNE/NRT on QF it's a day flight so do-able in whY.

You could maybe fly home CTS/NRT/BNE although the JL flights leaves at 0750 so you'd have a day in Tokyo or leave on a later NH flight at 1405 although you'd probably need to collect your luggage in NRT & recheck as I doubt NH would through check to QF unless it was the same pnr.

I'd check out the airfares and compare the cheapest economy fare with the cheapest economy fare that will allow you to request a points upgrade. Of course early January being school holidays is a peak time for upgrade requests so you need to weigh up whether paying for an economy fare you can upgrade is still worth it looking at the worst case scenario of the upgrade not being confirmed.

 

[Fifa]

To add to ozbeachbabe's excellent info:
It is often cheaper to book QF to Narita/Haneda then a separate oneworld JAL Yokoso/Visit Japan fare via an Australian travel agent.
You can then upgrade the Yokoso fare to J for only 1,000yen at check-in (or to F for 8,000yen for flights from HND).

 

[ozbeachbabe]

To add to ozbeachbabe's excellent info:
It is often cheaper to book QF to Narita/Haneda then a separate oneworld JAL Yokoso/Visit Japan fare via an Australian travel agent.
You can then upgrade the Yokoso fare to J for only 1,000yen at check-in (or to F for 8,000yen for flights from HND).

Can you upgrade those Yokoso fares prior to checkin or OLCI or can it only be done at the airport?

Do the points & SC post as the original ticketed class or the upgraded class of J or F?

 

[Fifa]

Can you upgrade those Yokoso fares prior to checkin or OLCI or can it only be done at the airport?

Do the points & SC post as the original ticketed class or the upgraded class of J or F?

You can only upgrade at checkin (cash or credit card).
SC post in the upgraded class so for NRT/HND - CTS it's 40 SC in J and for HND-CTS 60 SC in F. (Yokoso fares must be flexible as you earn earn 20 SC to CTS)
On one of our future ski trips I will have to allow a couple of extra days and book some Yokoso fares to Okinawa!

 

[drron]

From HND JL often have their 777s-even in Y we were comfortable.
From NRT a 737 which we thought inferior to their 777.

 

[Fifa]

From HND JL often have their 777s-even in Y we were comfortable.
From NRT a 737 which we thought inferior to their 777.

Agree...
I'm keen to try F on the 777 next Feb HND-CTS.
Cheap SCs and unlike Y & J you get fed.