A couple of weeks ago Qantas announced they will be flying from Sydney to Haneda, daily, from July 31st and Brisbane to Narita 4x weekly from August 2nd. The new Haneda flight will be operated by a 747 and Brisbane – Narita flight by an A330 – hopefully of the refurbished variety by then.
As usual with new route announcements, it’s worth checking what’s going on with points award space – this time around Premium Economy and Business Class are both fairly wide open from the first day onward on the Sydney to Haneda flight only,, with most days offering 2 seats in each class and some three.
Here’s the number of seats for Sydney to Haneda in Business and Premium Economy for a sampling of dates in August for 2 seats:
And for the return, Haneda to Sydney:
The Brisbane to Haneda flight though is left out in the cold, with no Business Class availability that I could find in 10 minutes or so of searching.
Maybe Business Class points availability hasn’t been loaded on this flight yet, but I suspect this is not the case with Economy class redemptions coming up on the 4 days per week that this flight is operated.
There’s also the possibility of further flights to Japan with Qantas keeping coy on a second Narita flight, only announcing that it will be 3 times per week, but not from where.
If you’re looking at a trip to Japan (or to Japan to connect elsewhere, say onto Europe or the US) then this is the time to get in and secure that availability out of Sydney. Japan is a great stopping off point for award flights to Europe with plenty of capacity in the market from British Airways and Japan Airlines.
I’m heading to Japan soon myself, via checking out JAL’s First Class that they are operating to Sydney over the next few months. Can’t wait!
Featured image map from GCmap.com
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