After being mostly closed to tourism since early 2020, Japan will finally reopen on October 11th.
There are no testing or vaccine requirements and countries that had visa free travel before COVID, such as the US, will be able to arrive with no visa required once again.
With the strong dollar, it’s a great time to visit Japan. Pre-COVID, a dollar bought about 105 yen. 1 dollar now buys about 143 yen!
You can use AA or Alaska miles to fly to Japan on JAL for just 60K miles in business class:
Virgin Atlantic charges just 45K-47.5K miles to fly ANA business class or 55K-60K miles to fly ANA first class each way to Japan, though fuel surcharges apply.
United has very good availability to Japan for 70K United miles or less when booked with partner airlines.
El Al plans to fly nonstop between Israel and Japan starting in March and there’s excellent award availability via Qantas miles. You can combine a trip to Japan and Israel by stringing together those awards!
I wrote about my accidental trip to Japan in 2015 here and spent several weeks there in 2005, it’s a fascinating country to explore!
Will you book travel to Japan?
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16 Comments On "Finally: Japan Will Reopen To Tourism Next Month"
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I wish award availability through Virgin Atlantic wasn’t so hard to find. I ended up canceling a trip 2 years ago due to the pandemic and have points just sitting there that I transferred over from Chase Ultimate Rewards
@Eitan there is plenty of availability on ANA that you can book with Virgin, or what a I missing?
JAL F vs ANA F which is better.
How much of a step down is J on these carriers? Compared to Polaris, LY?
ANA F.
F is a massive step up from J. But their J is better than US airlines J.
Thanks.
Follow up- Huge diff between JAL F and ANA J
Yes.
which is better ?
Flown all the premium cabins in the last two years. ANA J went through a massive refresh. It is significantly better than it used to be and it was never bad. JAL J is nice but can’t compare to the new ANA J. The only strange part with the new ANA J is half of the seats face backwards. It basically felt like a first class seat just with a smaller footwell.
I didn’t notice a huge difference between ANA F and JAL F but ANA probably gets the nod. If you’re flying from JFK, the kosher meals are Regal which is…not great. No difference between KSML in F or J.
If you do book ANA F, enjoy the Hibiki 21.
Already booked. :O)
Best way to book ANA J or F ?
Any kosher restaurants in Japan?
Not sure if these are still around:
https://www.dansdeals.com/points-travel/trip-notes/united-island-hopper-trip-notes-part-4-tokyo-japan/
They’re closed at the moment but with inbound tourism anything is possible. Catering with advance notice still available.
Is there random testing in Japan like in China? What happens if you test positive?
No.
In the immortal words of Tom Lehrer:
I really have a Yen to go back, once again