I didn't find a duplicate, although "ROC to TYO - how can I reduce the cost of my flight?" was helpful. My son was accepted into a training program at the south end of Japan. He was advised to fly to Narita (Tokyo) and take a shuttle all the way down there. I found that flights to Osaka (KIX) are typically cheaper, but I'm not sure of a way to find whether another city is lower still. All the airports I checked near his destination were much more expensive than Tokyo.
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Are you flying out of ROC? What city do you want to go to?– Aditya SomaniCommented May 20, 2014 at 1:54
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It'll depend on the time of year, class, airline, holidays, and luck. There's no guaranteed answer. I suggest looking on kayak.com, otherwise trying a service like flightfox or darjeelin.com.– Mark MayoCommented May 20, 2014 at 2:10
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I started out with kayak, but there are a zillion airports in Japan. It's almost as hard as trying to steal bitcoin by guessing someone's address. Well, maybe not.– WGroleauCommented May 20, 2014 at 2:13
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3Have you tried skyscanner.net? You can put simply "Japan" in the destination field.– Greg HewgillCommented May 20, 2014 at 2:20
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1@WGroleau Also, Is he on the east coast or the west coast. USA is a pretty big country. :/– Aditya SomaniCommented May 20, 2014 at 2:34
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1 Answer
There are only four airports in Japan that have direct flights to the continental US: Narita/NRT and Haneda/HND (Tokyo), Centrair/NGO (Nagoya) and Kansai/KIX (Osaka). None are particularly close to Kyushu, and it will probably cost you well over ¥10,000 in train fares to get to your destination, unless you're going to slum it in local trains that take forever (not recommended).
Some alternatives:
- If you fly in with any oneworld airline, you can get any connecting Japan Airlines domestic flight for ¥10,000 (~US$100) with the Yokoso Japan fare. The same deal applies to Star Alliance carriers and ANA domestic flights with their Visit Japan fare. These fares never show up in online booking engines, you need to book via a travel agent or the airline directly.
- For major routes like Haneda-Fukuoka, Japan's low-cost carriers may offer even cheaper fares if you book in advance. Check out Peach, Vanilla and StarFlyer. Note that the LCCs only fly to big airports, while you can use Yokoso/Visit Japan fares to go directly to any airport, no matter how tiny.
- While it has no direct flights to the US, Fukuoka Airport (FUK) at the northern tip of Kyushu has good connections to Asia, so it might be possible to score a good fare transiting via eg. China or Korea to Fukuoka.
- Last but not least, Rome2Rio is really good at digging up obscure flight combos. Trying New York to Beppu, it suggests flying from NRT to Oita with Jetstar Japan (GK), or Asiana via Seoul to Kumamoto.
- And skyscanner.net like Greg Hewgill said: Put in "USA to Japan" and narrow it down from that.
answered May 20, 2014 at 3:38
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1ANA now has a new offer (called "Experience Japan") which doesn't require flying to Japan on a StarAlliance carrier, and is generally less troublesome than the old one (can be booked online and up to 3 days before departure).– fkraiemCommented May 20, 2014 at 13:27
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I'm not sure what you mean by "direct." There are many flights to Fukuoka from USA with only one stop that can be bought as a single ticket.– WGroleauCommented May 21, 2014 at 2:24
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Those are not "direct", since they all require a transit outside Japan. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_flight Commented May 21, 2014 at 3:03
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Actually at least one of them had the only stop in Japan at Narita. Wiki definition says nothing about in or out of the country; it just says a single flight number. I don't know whether any of those have a single flight number—ones I looked at did not. Direct, by either definition, is irrelevant to me, anyway.– WGroleauCommented May 21, 2014 at 3:27
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