Japan Points Update: Summer 2026
Tl;dr: A round-up on the latest on getting to Japan and staying there with points, with some bonus travel info.
I love all kinds of travel, but if I'm being honest, I mostly collect points so I can go back to Japan. We visited twice last year, and we already have three more trips booked. It's a bit of a passion.
Because I follow Japan travel news pretty closely anyway, I thought it would be useful to start a quarterly roundup. This is a bit of a work in progress, but I plan to post these updates roughly quarterly. I’ll be sure to highlight the posts in our weekly newsletter if you don’t want to miss them.
✈️ Getting There
Flying Blue has solid pricing to Japan. After reading this from View From the Wing, I started exploring Flying Blue award pricing to Japan, and found suprisingly decent options.
With open-ended searches, I found round-trip pricing under 100k points from airports like San Francisco, Washington Dulles, Portland, and Dallas, and slightly above 100k from Raleigh, Tampa, and Omaha. Those options had round-trip fees under $200.
That’s not as cheap as the best Alaska or American redemptions, but every major flexible point currency transfers to Flying Blue, and transfer bonuses to bring down the points cost are fairly common..
Where have the JAL awards gone? A great Japan redemJAL has offered excellent pricing and availability on business-class awards—so much so that I actually booked one after Bilt offered a big transfer bonus to JAL. But it seems that award availability has dried up massively. This might not be a lazy option for the foreseeable future.
JAL and ANA hike fuel surcharges (again). Even if JAL had award availability, it might be hard to justify booking since fuel surcharges on award tickets to and from North America have more than doubled since the start of the year, rising in July to ¥65,000 (about $400). Same goes for ANA.
Use Virgin points for ANA premium cabins. It’s expensive and complicated, but AwardWallet has a good recent guide with instructions on booking ANA with Virgin points.
Best deals I saw recently
I saw a few excellent deals over the past few months. Thrifty Traveler flagged round-trip basic economy Delta fares from 60-80k SkyMiles nationwide (as low as 51k with a Delta credit card), Premium Economy for 100k Alaska or AA miles from Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, and Seattle, and Business-class availability for 70k JAL miles each way from Chicago, LA, Seattle, and San Francisco. And Alaska’s July Global Getaway featured Tokyo for 55k Atmos points.
New routes to use points
If you have a lot of United or Chase points burning a hole in your wallet, United is launching seasonal service to Sapporo, Hokkaido, as well as year-round direct flights between Chicago and Tokyo Narita. United often charges >100k points for round-trips to Japan—way more than I’m willing to pay—but sometimes offers solid value in business class, especially for elites and/or co-branded cardholders.
🏨 Staying There
Choice hotels are getting pricy in the big cities. While you can still book many Choice Hotels (often small but clean and efficient Comfort Hotels) throughout Japan for 8,000 points, the most central Tokyo and Osaka Choice hotels are now charging much more: often 20-30k points per night.
These and comparable hotels often cost $60-100, so even the 8,000-point options aren’t a steal, but they can be great for flexibility (points bookings are refundable) and for late checkout if you have Choice status
Transfers from Citi (1:1.5) and Wells Fargo (1:2) can still be a good deal
🗾 On the Ground
New limits on portable chargers on inbound Japan flights. The new rules are quite restrictive: no more than two, no more than 160 watt-hours each, in carry-on luggage only, and no use of any kind permitted during flight. Be sure to bring a charging cable to use in-seat power.
I always keep some USB to USB-C converters in my travel bag in case the plane doesn’t have the right plugs. (As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases if you use that link.)
Make sure you have internet access on arrival. You have to display your eVISA on your smartphone on arrival. Tokyo Cheapo explains how to avoid an awkward situation at the airport.
I don’t have this problem because my T-Mobile plan includes global roaming. Before that, I used Airalo and Ninja. Use my referral code MICHAE1215 for 3€ of Airalo “Airmoney” (I’ll get some too).
Japanese Yen sinks to record low. The dollar is going further than ever in Japan, as if I needed another excuse to visit…
Japan departure taxes climbing. The rate has tripled, but to only ¥3,000 (about $19).
Lazy Take 🦥
The past few months have featured increased government fees, rising fuel surcharges with some carriers, and the disappearance of some JAL award availability. Overall, though, there has been no shortage of lazy, value options for Japan travel. I just wish my PTO could keep up with these award sales.