I’m pretty excited: for the first time in my life I’ve purchased a first class plane ticket – and it only cost a fraction of the usual price.
Next August I’ll be travelling to New York City in style in Japan Airlines’ highly-regarded first class product.
This amazing fare is actually being marketed by American Airlines on its Korean website. It’s a roundtrip between Seoul and New York, transiting in Tokyo. Because American Airlines codeshares with Japan Airlines on this route, you can choose to fly Japan Airlines’ superior product the whole way.
I paid $3,800 for the return trip – which I admit is a lot of money – but Japan Airlines is charging more than $12,000 on its own website, and just flying from Tokyo to New York roundtrip with Japan Airlines can cost up to $20,000 – so I’m really happy with the price!
As these airlines are members of the oneworld alliance with Qantas, I’ll earn almost 40,000 Qantas Points and 660 Qantas Status Credits, plus 5,700 points for paying for the fare with my AMEX card.
The fare is fully refundable, which is a bonus if something comes up.
There’s lots of availability throughout 2017.
I’m positioning myself in Seoul using Qantas Points, flying in business class with Cathay Pacific and Qantas.
This hack illustrates my recent post about how you can save thousands of dollars by stopping over in Asia and then paying for a business or first class fare to your final destination.
However, it also illustrates another important point – that you need to be careful when booking tickets and always make sure you pay attention to the details.
For example, I was presented with flight options operated by both American Airlines (the first two rows below) and Japan Airlines (the bottom four rows).
In addition, some of the Japan Airlines flights were operated by a Boeing 787, which doesn’t have first class. Once you click on a flight, this becomes visible (see below where it states the fare and “cabin” type). It’s important to always check these details so you get exactly what you want.
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