Deal is no longer showing unfortunately. Marked as expired.
The Offer
- Delta has another flash sale. This time round trip flights to Tokyo-Narita, Japan (NRT) from 54,000 miles round trip plus taxes and fees. Must book by August 29th, 2018 for travel from August 30th until December 9th, 2018.
- 54,000 fare is only available from LAX
- 70,000 fares available from JFK, ATL, SEA, BOS, DTW & PDX
The Fine Print
- Purchase By August 29, 2018
- Travel period: August 30 – December 9, 2018
Our Verdict
Taxes and fees should be $45.51 from LAX, other destinations seem to be roughly the same. Doesn’t look like the non stop flights from LAX are available unfortunately. No idea how much these flights typically cost unfortunately.
Hat tip to The Gate
It looks like the deal is already gone. It no longer appears on the page.
Flash over? I only see 30k to HKG and misc latam deals.
We went to Tokyo Japan from JFK nonstop with AA miles. It was like 25 or 35 one way (don’t remember exactly) by calling up Japan airlines and using AA miles.
So you redeemed AA miles by calling JAL? This must be something new for me.
Op must mean that they called AA to redeem AA miles on JAL
this is a fantastic deal ! (at least from LAX)
I like DOC, because other blogs like the TPG are overestimating points value (probably because they want you to use their affiliated links), but only really good deal are here.
If you want to calculate properly the points value you need to take in consideration tax/surcharge fees (ony $54 for Delta) and compare with the lowest cash price you would have to pay on google flights.
ANA and JAL will charge you almost $350 cash on top of the points for my september RT from LAX. I could book the similar flight for $800 RT on google flights.
So ANA/JAL (asuming low peak period 50k pts) : (800-350)/500 = 0.9 cents/points
Delta : (800 – 54) /540= 1.38cents/points
It is REALLY hard to get good redemption rate when using points to fly to Tokyo from LAX. So 1.38cts/pts is pretty good unless you have a CSR
Just curious, why is it so hard to get a good redemption rate to Tokyo from LAX? I always have to transfer to one of the hub airport when I go to Southeast Asia every summer. It is a real pain to find available award tickets for a family of 3 and I always wish I lived at one of those hub cities!
Duno, I have always wondered ! Flying to Paris for example si often 25%+ more expensive from LAX than SFO !
LA is fantastic city to live in, but an expensive one to travel from !
Even your typical LA-NYC weekend getaway flights will often cost you more than 40k miles RT in economy
I don’t know about you but I always use TPG’s valuation, and double it by two to get a real sense of how much I’m WINNING!
/sarcasm
The value does decrease a bit if transferring points from AMEX due to the small fee associated with the points to miles transfer, but overall, I get close to 1.7 cents/point with Delta on good days.
good for you. As said LAX routes are far more complicated in terms of getting good value.
BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY : real life people have to deal with many constraints when traveling which considerably reduce the number of option when booking an award ticket.
Sure you can book your flights 6 months in advance, let points redemption rate decide of your destination, and leave/return in the middle of the week … but normal people (like me and everyone I know) simply don’t do that…
No idea how 70K for a ECONOMY round trip is consider a good deal?
2 weeks ago I transfer 92500 Amex MR to Virgin Atlantic (currently has 30% transfer bonus) I redeemed an ANA First Class round trip ticket from JFK to HND for Feb 2019. I paid 342.31 in Tax
The Ticket price quoted from ANA web site is 2525500 YEN = $22,704.24 USD.
ANA First Class $22,704 – 342 =
$22362 / 92500 = 0.24
It mean my redeem value is around 24 cents/point.
I am surprised how expensive for the FIRST Class from what I heard the typical first class is around 10K. so even if we are using a typical 10K ticket price we are still talking round 10 cents/points
And1.38 cents/point is good value…
Aint nobody paying $23k for that flight
I said normal people. You should agree that 1)normal people dont fly first class and 2) they dont book flight tickets 6 months ago. (+february is low peak season)
Now, prove everyone you re so smart and tell us how would you book an economy RT LAX-NRT at a high value/pts…
*6 months in advance I mean
I know a lot of people will disagree with me here, but unless it was for a special occasion,I truly wonder how come New Yorkers who have so high standards that they have to fly First Class to Tokyo are reading this blog about getting free burgers, MSing GC, or 5% discount on raise GC…
Dont get me wrong, right now DOC is my favorite website from the entire internet, and I cherish those frugal hacks (like the OD/OM riple dip discount <3 <3) from the very bottom of my heart ! But for now I am a broke graduate student living out of loans. The day (if ever !) I ll be well enough to fly 1st class, I feel like my opportunity cost for the time spent buying GC/MO, creating multiple accounts for discounts and reading my beloved DOC will be too high for pursue hobby.
As mentioned by DOC, its mainly(solely?)a good deal for LAX and yeah the 70k from nyc is nothign special.
I see flights for economy China eastern RT NYC-NRT in February at $700 (plus earning points on those flights)
Even at pts value as low as 1.25ct (Schwab account for cash) you still paid $1500 for your ticket.
So you re bragging about paying a premium of $800 to commit to fly first in 6 months during Tokyo's cold-as-hell winter. Definitely a fantastic point value rate, but terribly inconvenient and not a cohesive choice from a frugal hacker.
I d personally choose anytime to fly Delta's economy direct flights there next month during the end of summer at 1.38 cents (54k pts *1.25 + 45 fees = 1125) and have an extra $375 to spend there…
I am an ordinary person and I dont have high standard, I can fly first class to Tokyo and I still can live in a $50/night Biz hotel in Asakusa. My preferred way to travel for 10 hours flight plus is Biz and up and I always use Miles/Point to achieve that, I will NEVER use my point with less than 1.5 cen I will pay $ for anything that less than 1.5.
I’ve been around long enough in this frugal world and I try to learn from diff people and listen to them, from fatwallet, slickdeals, flyertalker, reddit and it earn it tons, and save me thousands. I wouldn’t brush off any idea that save me money while provide me better comfort.
I am just showing you there’s a better way to use your miles. Telling you with 25000 more miles and $300 more you can do a First. And this is a really good deal, consider regular ANA Biz rate is 85000
And BTW if you willing to take time to learn and research, you can do incredible thing. I booked ANA round the world reward Biz ticket in X’mas 2016 in Oct for 7 cities in Montreal, Lyon, Athen, Istanbul, Hong Kong, Taipei, Seoul, Tokyo (2 month before taking off) for just 110K miles.
And what the Tokyo in Feb is cold as hell??? The average temp is actually higher by 10 F than NYC.. and you are talking to someone who grow up from Canada,,, Cold as hell in Tokyo LOL…
Isn’t this regular price? AAdvantage JFK to NRT/HND nonstop on JAL is 32500/35000 one way. What’s the big deal?
Yes. It’s definitely the usual price from SEA. Only real sale is LAX.
I think Delta regular price is much higher than that. I can be wrong though.
Lol the big deal is that Skypesos are worth something now.
AA isn’t delta?
These flash sales are making the delta 60K sign up much more valuable.