Planning A Trip To Japan (Part 1 - Airfare)

First off, I must admit that I originally wanted to make these updates as daily as possible and for that, I do apologize.

So as some of my readers know, I am currently planning yet another return trip back to Japan. I’ve hinted to my mom that my friends and I were “going to Asia” next year, but I have this inkling that she’ll want Vanessa and I to go back to the Philippines… to which I would’ve replied, “It’s not safe there.”

But I digress. This post is all about my dream of bringing some of my closest friends with me to Japan.

Flying The (Not So Cheap) Skies

So what happens usually when you start planning things like a trip?

Well, what I normally do is check the airfare first. To me, the airfare is something that will make or break that person’s ability to join the trip. It has to be by far the single most expensive purchase that a traveler would do before they even plan accommodations and they haven’t even left the country! It should be noted however that once the airfare has been saved up, purchased, and seats reserved that the actual trip itself is now officially underway for that person.

For our group of six, we looked into an approximate date that we wanted to travel that was equivalent to next year’s date. Often airlines and aggregate sites only have a year or even several months’ worth of airline ticket data and we had to lock in our travel dates for next year Locking travel dates is crucial because it allows everyone to be on the same page in terms of planning. No one wants surprises, especially if you’re planning to take a week off of work. In our case, we locked our travel dates around Memorial Day weekend so we looked at prices heading to Japan on Memorial Day weekend this year returning two Mondays after. This weird schedule gives us one additional day to stay in Japan, thanks to Memorial Day being a paid holiday.

Our original locked dates were in mid-June, which mimicked a previous itinerary that I had used for Vanessa’s graduation trip last year. The trouble with that schedule is that mid-June is the start of the rainy season in Japan and, if you look at any guide book, you’ll learn that June has one of the highest rainfall percentage in the entire year. Needless to say, it rained almost all the time during that trip. There was, however, a huge concern with moving the trip date forward and that was the cost. If we were to move the trip forward, it better be comparable to the cost when going during mid-June.

Thankfully, traveling during Memorial Day weekend versus mid-June was slightly more affordable… by $5. Great, an even bigger incentive to travel earlier!

But wait! When I originally quoted our airfare I only entered in myself and Vanessa for the trip and not everyone else. So imagine my surprise when I finally told SideStep.com (my aggregate of choice) that I’ll be traveling with six other companions. I’ll let the results below do the talking here.

The following screenshot was taken when I was looking for only two passengers for the trip:

Airfare’s reasonable. When Vanessa and I took this trip last year, we paid $30 more than what it’s showing right now. Definitely a steal. Okay, it’s time to include everyone in this equation.

The following screenshot was taken when I was looking for six passengers for the same trip:

Wait, what just happened here? I could’ve sworn I saw Asiana Airlines for ~$1050 a mere two minutes ago… so why is our airfare up by $400 all of a sudden?

Well here’s the dirty secret of airline aggregate sites: They don’t aggregate everything. Airlines typically only let aggregate sites see what other travel agents are seeing. You see, the way it works is that the reason why travel agents can get a huge cut off of your trip is because they pre-purchase seats from airlines. The same goes with aggregate sites. In this case, SideStep.com had purchased two seats on those flights and showed it to you so that they can get a kickback from the purchase. For each sale, the site that sold the ticket then go back to SideStep and share the profits based on a predetermined basis.

So that’s not good… we’re back to square one and we’re quite unsure how much the airfare would cost right?

Not necessarily.

Thanks to SideStep.com, we know when we entered only two people that Asiana Airlines has the lowest airfare headed to Japan. We need only to go to Asiana Airlines’ websites and plug in the information that SideStep.com wouldn’t display.

The following screenshot was taken when we plugged in all the information into Asiana Airlines’ website:
Now that’s more like it. And their site even told me how much everything would cost altogether and even itemized the exact flights that I’d be taking on this trip! Good job, Asiana!

So if there’s anything you should take from this, is that start small when looking for flights and when things disappear when you get a bigger group, just head to the airline’s official page and see what they have for you! Seeing as how the trip’s not gonna be for another year, I’m gonna cancel this order before I accidentally purchase it.

Next time, I’ll go over choosing the right hotel(s) for our trip in the hopes that it helps you learn how to plan your future vacations!