Update July 9 2014
This deal is now dead as LifeMiles has changed the number of miles needed for flights to GUM.
How to get very cheap business class flights to Tokyo
This is an advanced topic for those willing to take a bit of risk and do some work.
There is an airline called Avianca with a mileage program called LifeMiles. Avianca is part of the star alliance which means you can use their miles to book flights on other airlines like United and Singapore Airlines (just to name a few). There are 2 main features to LifeMiles that make them such a great deal to fly to Tokyo or Guam for less:
You can buy LifeMiles for cheap
There are some sweet spots in their award chart
LifeMiles have some interesting “anomalies” in their award chart. This is where things get kid of crazy. They only charge 12,500 miles for a one-way ticket from the mainland US to Guam in economy and 25,000 miles in business class. For those not familiar with using airline miles, that’s the same price that it costs to fly within the continental US. But Guam is far away. Usually it’s 50,000-65,000 miles for the same flight in business class instead of 25,000.
But I thought you were talking about flights to Tokyo? Well, here’s where it gets even more “interesting.” To get to Guam you often have to fly through other cities like Tokyo. If you want to continue on to Guam, that’s fine. But there’s nothing preventing you from stopping in Tokyo instead. (This is much cheaper than booking a flight straight to Tokyo.) There are some things to consider if you decide to skip your last flight, though. First of all, don’t check any baggage because it will end up in Guam. Secondly, only book this as a one-way to Guam, not a round trip. Otherwise your return flights will get canceled if you miss your flight to Guam.
United Airlines flies this route with nice business class with lie-flat seat that turns into a bed (see photo at the top).
Cheap Economy Class tickets to Tokyo & Guam
How do I get back?
Summary
Further Reading
- $200 Flight to Japan with Hidden City Ticketing on LifeMiles Awards
- Business Class 10k Award Miles One Way to Asia via Cabotage/Throwaway Route
- Flyertalk thread (note this will take you a long time to decipher and may not be too helpful).
Wow! What a great deal. I am not a member of life miles but I guess I should be. Thanks for sharing.
Yes, get an account now so you’re ready for the next buy miles deal. You have to already be a member to take advantage of those deals. It’s free to sign up of course.
Have you noticed this deal not working anymore? any other way to do it?
Thanks for the tips. I joined LifeMiles recently for the sign on bonus and have been racking up the points ever since to take advantage of the LAX-GUAM via Tokyo deal. ONly thing is, when I use the search engine on the LifeMiles site to try and anticipate booking something as far as a year out, literally every day is saying “Sold Out”. I feel like the flights can’t possibly be sold out as far ahead as June 2015. Am I missing something? Thanks.
Carlos and Jenny – it seems that finding space is harder than it used to be, but I would encourage you to try again because for a while LifeMiles wasn’t showing most United award space, but it seems they have fixed this now.