Preparation to the Land of The Rising Sun, Japan Part 1: cheap airfare

Hi guys!! It has been such a long time to write again in this blog (sorry). I know, I’ve been neglecting it for God knows how long. I’ll promise, I’ll be sharing some more travel tips. So, Here it is.. (Enjoy)

Japan has always been in my travel list. I know Japan since I was like 5 years old. Back then, I always woke at 6 am to watch the Japanese anime: Doraemon, Sailor Moon, Chibi Maruko Chan, Kobo Chan, Pokemon and many more to be listed down. It just didn’t stop there, I still watch it until now with less frequent i guess. So, to me, Japan never dies.

In 2015, I heard my friends got a cheap return ticket to Tokyo by Airasia, only IDR 3 millions something ($300ish). They told me that before the good parts, you should endure the endless flying time (almost 8 hours of waiting and 7 hours of flying) but it’s Japan we were talking about, I didn’t give a damn to the long waiting time. After had made up my mind, I began my research on the tale of cheap tickets. I focused my point to Airasia and Airasia alone. My friends told me that Airasia had specific discount seasons, and i should be aware when it came out. Finding a discount wasn’t as long and hard as I thought, they did it every week!!! Week by week they had promotions like crazy, this place, that place or this place again with different prices!!

I waited like crazy for the upcoming Japan discount and finally it showed up. The deal with Airasia is even if they said the discount period is within 9 months, you still have to be smart to pick a date, it ain't like every day is as cheap as they said in promotion. So I picked my date and rough destination.


For booking a cheap airline, it's best to at least acknowledge this:

1. Know the lowest & highest limit. You can get information from friends or other blogs to set your bar here.
2. Be aware of special date. Promotion date usually comes in various occasions such as year end, mid year, valentine, or travel fair. Check or subscribe to various airlines.
3. Book ticket from months before. Some cheap airlines are selling promotion tickets months before the departure. It's best to book months before for planning ahead.
4. Pick the right date. Promotion tickets usually don’t cover all the date stated in period of departure, you should choose a week or two right before and/or after the holiday week. Another way is you can change the view to see monthly airfare to check which is the lowest. If you have limited annual leave, pick the date in between holiday and weekend, it will save your annual leave for sure.
5. Be concern with national holiday of your country, airline country and the one you want to visit. In case of Japan with Airasia, don’t ever book ticket during the eid holiday and golden week or sakura season, you’ll find none cheap ticket for sure
6. 4 seasons countries tips. When it comes to four seasons country like Japan, choose date in between seasons like winter and spring or autumn and winter to feel both seasons
7. Be quick. Promotion dates usually limited and won’t last long, so book your ticket in 1 or 2 days after the opening to get the limited seat

After a rough discussion and consideration. i finally I booked my ticket to Japan!!! Excited!!

I booked those tickets with this consideration:

• I wanted to travel around Honshu island in Japan so I went to Osaka from west right to the east Tokyo.
• Since I booked a cheap tickets with long layover time, 8 hours!! I should’ve prepared the right duration in Japan, and we decided 8,5 days would be enough
• We traveled with 7 persons and it was a lot cheaper to book each 25kgs for 3 persons than 15 kgs for 5. Airasia has no policy about each person should bring only 1 or 2 baggages!! (Thanks God), but some Chinese airlines are applying that rules, you should make sure before booking. Note that you still have 7 kgs of hand carry, in total 15+7= 22 kgs
• No meal on board. Again, Airasia has no or loose policy about outside foods, so with long layover, sure we would be able to snuggle some foods from KLIA 

The ticket I bought is around IDR 4,000,000 or $380 because i wanted to arrive in Osaka and depart from Tokyo, the usual return ticket to Tokyo or Osaka is around IDR 3,600,000 or $340. Ticket was in my hand, and i was a step closer to Japan!! 

my next blog is about how to make your own itinerary.

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*)Note that baggage in Airasia costs you from Home to Transit and Transit to arrival and vice versa with different prices each area depending on the distance