Job Discussion Forums

guitarcries · Joined: 13 Jun 2005 Posts: 21 Location: Japan

I'm going home to America (Massachusetts, to be exact) for a friend's wedding in late June/early July, and I have been maniacally looking for reasonably priced tickets for about a week now. I went to the travel agent here in town with a Japanese friend to assist in translating, I've looked at a million web sites (Japanese companies and American ones), and I can't find much that's really good.

One site did quote me a reasonable fare that went through Taipei... but I'm afraid that'll mean I'll be on the plane for 35 hours. And I would like to avoid that. The travel agency flight was 150000 altogether, which seemed excessive, although it didn't go through a third country.

It sucks living in Hakodate when wanting to travel internationally!!!

Anyone have any further suggestions?

abufletcher · Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 3:34 pm Post subject:

I don't know where Hakodate is, but I'd expect airfair from Tokyo, Narita or Osaka to LA roundtrip to be about $800-900 (including taxes) in late June/early July. After that is goes up steeply almost every week. Add $300 on to that to also be flying all the way across the US and 150,000 yen doesn't sound that outrageous.

Have you looked into the possibility of finding a cheap flight to London and then another cheap flight on to the east coast US from there?

kdynamic · Joined: 05 Nov 2005 Posts: 562 Location: Japan

150000??? I am going home this month and flying back right on the first day of golden week, and on top of that I have a triangle of flights (japan->San Fransisco(5days)->LA(a week)->Japan. It was 55000. Adding taxes (mostly the stupid US airport tax) it came to 70000.

You can find cheaper!

abufletcher · Posted: Tue Apr 11, 2006 3:39 pm Post subject:

kdynamic, you're flying at the lowest of the low season rates. I flew round trip Narita - LA - Narita in Feb./Mar. and also paid about 60,000 total. But you can count on double that for high season travel.

guitarcries · Joined: 13 Jun 2005 Posts: 21 Location: Japan

Hakodate is on Hokkaido, which means I have to take a train or plane up to Sapporo (for almost all flights), then fly down through Osaka or Tokyo, and then to America, where for some flights I have yet another connection. It's a pain in the arse!

earache · Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 15 Location: Japan

If you can read Japanese, check Yahoo.co.jp travel. They collect offers from a load of different companies. Just do a search for your destination and the date you want to fly. It'll tell you the fares available, starting with the lowest. If nothing else, you can go to your local travel agent then armed with this info and ask them to try and do you a better deal. Do keep in mind that the fares shown on Yahoo are usually exclusive of taxes so you'll need to add on another 10000-20000 yen.

Genkikiwi · Joined: 06 Jun 2003 Posts: 41 Location: Sapporo

hi Guitarcries
i guess you already know about IACE travel but just in case you don`t

http://www.iace.co.jp/english/cmp/airticket/spk.html

their office is centrally located not too far from Sapporo Station