if you want to find the cheapest ways to fly to Asia in business class this video is for you even if you're looking to fly somewhere like Thailand Bali or the Philippines where routes are scarce in today's tutorial we're covering the best ways to fly to Asia on points and also the routing rules that you need so that you can save extra on the connecting flights too let's Jump Right In all right let's start by looking for flights to Asia by using Air Canada's program which is probably going to be the most common use case for most people especially if you are going through Taipei Korea Singapore or Japan to get to your ultimate destination in Asia so here we go to seats. arrow click on explore and then Air Canada let's just search for anywhere from North America over to Asia I recommend getting the pro version so that you can see the extended availability it's only $10 and lets you see the entire year out from there click on business class lowest a lot of these are going to have pretty cheap flights from Hawaii but let's say that you wanted to do something from the Continental us and that you wanted to go through Singapore so here we have a few different options we have Houston we have San Francisco we have Newark we have LAX so let's do this first one from Houston over to Singapore it should cost about 87.5 th000 points and there is one seat left on this direct Singapore Airlines flight so to actually book this we would go to aircanada.com and we would search from Houston over to Singapore on that date which was January 31st for one adult go ahead and click search flights and here we do see the lowest business class flight available for 875,000 Points Plus 75 Canadian dollars it is a direct flight from Houston to Singapore it's about 23 hours operated by Singapore Airlines now let's say that you need more than one seat and there isn't a lot of other availability for this on Air Canada you could book this through Singapore Airlines directly and pretty much every flexible type of points like Chase AMX Capital 1 City we'll transfer over to Singapore Airlines so what we'll do is go to Singapore a.com click on redeem flights for that same route from Houston over to Singapore the end of January we'll just search one way for now let's say that we want to do this in business class for one adult click search so for that exact date it is weight listed but for the day before on January 30th we do see that they have sa space available starting at 1.5000 points if you wanted to search for more than one adult availability is a little bit more limited but if you're flexible on dates they do have more availability for two people in February the catch here is that it's going to cost quite a bit more points if you are doing this through Singapore directly versus through Air Canada but they will have more avail ility for you this way another cool thing about Air Canada is that the points that you're going to pay for partner Airlines like the ones that you're going to fly to Asia we'll come down to this Award chart where sometimes you can tack on an additional leg to your flight without having to pay too many more points depending on how far you're flying in physical miles here's an example so let's say that you are based in Los Angeles and you would like to fly that Eva Airlines route through taipe somewhere in July s. Arrow says there's three dates available you could either fly from LAX through taipe on the 21st the 26th or the 29th let's pick the 29th and just confirm that this flight still exists on Air Canada's website so here on aircanada.com we are going to search from LAX over to taipe on July 29 we sort by business class lowest we do see that flight from Los Angeles to Tai pay operated by Eva a and it is a 75,000 Point flight plus $75 Canadian dollars so not bad at all but it gets better because of this Award chart for Air Canada if we want to connect somewhere that's still within that 7500 mile physical distance range they're not going to tack on any extra points for us to fly that and then if we wanted to fly somewhere that's within 75001 or 11,000 physical miles even as we're connecting through it's only going to cost 87.5 ,000 points in total one way to calculate that would be to go to great circle mapper and then here you can click on map paths and search okay how far is it if I want it to go from LAX to taipe or LAX to taipe toong or LAX to taipe to Manila so from LAX to Taipei this is about 6,800 miles so that makes sense that it's only going to cost 75,000 points with Air Canada since that is below 7500 limit if we wanted to go through taipe into Hong Kong Kong that would be 7,300 M so we could actually tack on another leg to Hong Kong and it would still only cost 75,000 points since we're under the 7500 physical mile threshold and if we wanted to fly LAX through Taipei into Manila then you've crossed the 7500 Point threshold by just a little bit so that is going to bump us up into the next bracket where that should cost 875,000 points just to test that out let's modify our search from Los Angeles over to vanilla for the same day and see if there is anything else and here we do see exactly that it's operated by Eva Air from Los Angeles through Tye into Manila for 87.5 th000 Points Plus 96 Canadian dollars so we get asked about Manila a lot given that I am Filipina and there's no easy direct routes into the Philippines from most of the US most of the airline routes are operated by Philippine Airlines which isn't a convenient Transfer Partner with anyone so one great option is is to connect through Air Canada onto something like this Eva Airway option and then it's only going to cost 875,000 Points Plus 96 Canadian dollars to fly from Los Angeles over to Manila with points in business class if you're new to points and you feel a little overwhelmed by what just happened there don't worry we offer a free points and Miles 101 course to help you earn and redeem points for your first Redemption the course covers everything you need to know to earn points and get your first flight covered grab the free course at geob travel.com freour or check out the link in the description box not only does Air Canada have great routes for flights to HUB cities like Tokyo Taipei and Singapore but you can also use Aeroplan routing rules to save on flights to India here's how here's another trick about how Air Canada does their zoning and their routing weirdly enough India is considered as part of the Atlantic Zone it is in the same Zone as Europe and the Middle East and Africa rather than in the same Zone as Asia Pacific that means the points they're charging can get a little bit weird because between North America and the Atlantic zones if you're flying 6,000 to 8,000 physical miles they're going to charge you 90,000 points and if you're flying more than 8,000 Mi they're going to charge you 110,000 points so if we go to great circle mapper let's figure out how far it is from let say San Francisco over to Delhi India that is about 7700 miles on Air Canada's Award chart that should cost about 990,000 points per person each way in business class let's check that on seats. Arrow where let's say we can search from SFO over to Delhi and that is corrected will cost 990,000 points to fly that particular route and we can search the exact same thing on Air Canada as well so from SFO over toite India um let's pick this one January 18 we do see the San Francisco route operated by Air India into Delhi for 990,000 points but here's where it gets weird keep in mind this is a total flight distance of 7700 Mi but if you were to cross all the way into Asia 7700 m is only 87.5 th000 points instead of the 90,000 points in fact you could go all the way up to 11,000 physical miles flown between North America and the Pacific and it will still cost less than simply flying the 7700 miles between North America and the Atlantic zone so here's how you can use that to your advantage instead of just flying San Francisco over to Del you can often cross through Delhi into the Pacific Zone like let's say we wanted to go SFO over to Singapore do not go for the direct route with Singapore Airlines instead you would want to go through something that connects through India so on this exact same day January 18 there is a flight from SFO to Singapore but there's a connection which is noted in blue so the first route is going to be through Air India and then the second one is going to be Singapore Airlines if we check this on Air Canada instead of going from San Francisco directly to Delhi let's type in San Francisco over to Singapore same date and instead of 90,000 points once we click find supp by business class Lois it is instead going to be 87.5 th000 points where you are going from San Francisco through Delhi you have a 7-hour layover into Singapore there's this option as well where it's Air India on both legs and then you have a 7 and 1/2 hour layover and if at this point you're thinking that's cool but if I'm going to India I'm going to need more than 8 hours in India you can actually book this over the phone call Air Canada and request their stopover program it's only going to cost an extra 5,000 points and now you've added a second destination onto your flight where you could go from San Francisco take a stop over in India for however many days you like add an extra 5,000 points and then also continue on to Singapore and fly back from there if you would like so then you get to see India and Singapore for only 925,000 points you could skip lag this where you just get off in India and not take the second leg over to Singapore and you save yourself 3,000 or so points there I do not recommend it because if you're doing this with points they have your frequent flyer ID tied to the reservation and they get mad when you skip lag so I would not do it I would instead just tack on an extra leg to your vacation enjoy the stopover program with Air Canada for only 5,000 points and save yourself some points that way are you enjoying these types of step-by-step tutorials if yes please let me know click that like button leave a comment and subscribe to the channel for even more points and Miles tips every week we release a weekly video with these types of step-by-step tutorials and we also have a podcast where I interview points Enthusiast about different strategies every week next up is one of the cheapest ways to fly to Asia in business class especially if you need to do extra positioning flights because you live near a smaller airport like Kansas City Louisville or Cincinnati here's the play the next Airline program that can get you some really really cheap flights into Asia on points in business class would be American Airlines so on seats. Aro we can search from North America over to Asia click on extended availability and this is great if you want to fly into Japan so there are a lot of flights once again from Hawaii into either Korea or Japan with Hawaiian Airlines or Japan Airlines but what we're going to focus on today is flying either into Narita or haneda airport for only 60,000 points here we see a lot of different options from either San Francisco or Chicago Dallas Fort Worth these are all direct flights if you hover over the points price you'll see the iata code is JL which stands for Japan Airlines and you can fly this into Hana they even have some for Shanghai as well that's an AA direct flight but you can do this all the way from the East Coast you could fly from Boston to Tokyo for only 60,000 points per person each way in business class let's see what dates are available there if we wanted to fly from Boston to Narita there's only two dates available on this particular search April 23rd or April 25th let's go with the 23rd and so what we'll do here is go to aa.com click on oneway redeem points we going to go from Boston over to arita one passenger and we'll click on April 23rd and click search and here we do see that business class flight for 60,000 Points Plus $5.60 operated by Japan Airlines from Boston to Narita but it actually gets better because American Airlines often times won't charge you additional points if you need to tack on positioning flights for example let's say that you're in a smaller airport like Cincinnati you want to go over to Japan on that same day if you instead search from Cincinnati over to Narita and click search sort by business class lowest and you'll see that same flight even with the positioning flight from Cincinnati over to Boston then Boston over tarita is still the exact same price 60,000 Points Plus $560 still gets even better what if you wanted to connect to somewhere that isn't Japan what if you wanted to go all the way to Vietnam let's change our search from Cincinnati all the way over to hoien City keeping the same date and then we can go ahead and click search so here we'll see the itinerary from Cincinnati over to Boston Boston over to Narita Narita over to hoian City all for 70,000 Points Plus $160 so if you are connecting through Japan into somewhere like southeast Asia whether it's Vietnam or Philippines or something like that this can be a really cheap way to do so on points as long as you have either American airline miles or built points which is currently the only flexible currency that can transfer over to American Airlines Airlines like American Airlines or Alaska can be tough to work with since most of the flexible points currencies like Chase AMX Capital 1 and City don't don't transfer there however our next tutorial covers how to use Virgin Atlantic to fly Korean Airlines Virgin Atlantic is great because it is a Transfer Partner with all of the major credit card programs Chase AMX City Capital One and built that way you can pull points from these different programs into Virgin Atlantic to get these great redemptions and if you're not sure what card to start with in order to earn these types of flexible points we offer free credit card consultations at geob travel.com consultations we'll send you personalized recommendations based on your particular goals budget and lifestyle also check out geob travel.com cardmatch card match is a unique tool that pairs you with tailored or pre-qualified credit card offers this often unveils exclusive offers like elevated welcome bonuses that aren't available through standard public or affiliate channels for you to get these offers you do need to proceed to the application directly after selecting the card match offer okay here's the tutorial for how to save on Korean Airlines flights and also a quick way that you might be able to find all the deals mentioned so far one Airline program that you might not think to check for flights over to Asia would be Virgin Atlantic since it does specialize in flights over to Europe but you can actually find some really great flights over to Korea this way so if we search for flights from North America over to Asia on Virgin Atlantic and show extended availability searched by business class there are a few routes that fly over to inchon airport in Korea either from Las Vegas Seattle LAX Boston Dallas and a few others so let's say that we like this particular route from Seattle over to inchon it should cost 85,000 points and once we hover over this green box we see the code K which stands for Korean Airlines so this would be on July 18 so what we would do is go to Virgin atlantic.com search from Seattle over to encho South Korea one way on July 18 for one passenger show flexible dates and always click on advanced search points upper class and then click go and then from here we do see this flight availability for $85,000 Points Plus $28 in taxes and fees there's nothing else available this week but if we go up to the search bar and change flexible dates to flexible calendar then we see that there are flights available on the 18th the 23rd and the 24th let's go ahead and continue on with the 18th and here we see that flight from Seattle direct over to inchon operated by Korean Air and if we click on details this is in business class and would only cost 85,000 points plus $27.60 if you wanted to book this through Virgin Atlantic where you can transfer any of the flexible points currencies Chase AMX Capital 1 City or built all transfer over to ver in Atlantic and so this would be the best way if you wanted to fly on Korean Air business class with points if you're looking for an easy way to find all of these different routes on c. Aro you can actually just click on this search Tab and then you can click on Origin airport anywhere from the USA destination airport you can actually search by region so you could say Asia or southeast Asia or India to find these different types of routes so let's just add all of them in here Asia southeast Asia India then you can specify a departure date and then you can also say anything within a month of there then you can also specify if you only want direct flights how much your budget is in fees how many minimum available seats there need to be and if you just want business or first class go ahead and click search from there and then from here we can filter on business lowest so here's where you can see Alaska will often have 60,000 Point flights on Japan Airlines over to Japan here are those airplane routes that we found for 75,000 points this is Asiana this is another way that you can fly over to Korea over to Taipei more of those Aeroplane miles lots of these 75,000 Point routes 83 3,000 points over to Deli you could also use Avianca life miles instead of Aeroplan to fly over in Star Alliance I find Aeroplan tends to be a little bit cheaper depending on the route but that is something that you can do as well so this search function on seats. Arrow is just an easy way to find all of your different flight options this doesn't show you all of the tricks with the connecting routes and the stopovers and the adding on the different positioning flights that we talk through in this video but it is a good way to see all of the different direct flights that you can do we have one tutorial left and it's the sweetest spot of all we're talking about how you can fly on one of the best business class products in the sky for only 45,000 points from the US to Asia but it can be tricky to find the availability if you're looking for even more Next Level ways to make the most out of your points we have a couple of options for you the first way is through the geob travel patreon which you can access through patreon.com geob travel through the patreon we can prepare personalized step-by-step tutorials based on the exact routes that you want to see we also host a live group coaching session every month you can ask any questions that you have about points travel or anything else in the open Forum we also have a lot of people who join the $5 level just to say thank you for the free content and I am all here for that thank you so much I appreciate you so much the second option is for business owners or individuals who spend more than $100,000 a year on expenses if that's you we would love to chat with you about our points portfolio management offer I don't know if you know but you can get some incredible luxury travel with that level of spend book a free intro chat with us at geob travel.com INR call to learn more okay here is how to get some flights in Ana's business class for only 45,000 points per person each way another really popular airline for finding cheap flights over to Japan in one of the best business class flights in the world is with Ana so here if you search for Ana international flight Awards you can reserve or purchase a ticket with points with Ana there there are a few things that you have to keep in mind so first of all only American Express points will transfer over to Ana no other type of points can transfer over secondly they do not transfer immediately it takes about 3 days for your points to transfer over and your flight availability could disappear in that time and then third availability has just been sparse lately so here's an example if we wanted to search from LAX let's say haa sometime far out in the calendar to hopefully help us find more availability always say plus or minus 3 days in business class and let's search this will show you the dates where there is availability and here we see something on August 25th and September 7 this is another thing about Ana is you can't book one-way flights it has to be roundt trip so go ahead and click next so this flight up here is weight listed but they do have availability down here with Los Angeles to Hana and then coming back Tokyo to Hana and the entire thing is 87 . 5,000 miles in business class round trip for one passenger and so that is a fantastic deal because that is both going there and coming back 87.5 th000 Mi the thing is you saw on that calendar when we were selecting our dates there's not a lot of availability you have one date option here a few more in September but if you have to wait 3 days for your points to transfer over and this one flight disappears your points are just stuck with Ana which is a bit of a bummer to say the least especially if you're doing this for multiple people and you're transferring in hundreds of thousands of points that could be stuck in your Ana account so while 875,000 points is a fantastic way to do this here's another trick that you can do you can book those AA business class flights between the US and Japan starting at about 45,000 points per person one way if you only want to do this as a one-way flight and that can open up a lot more availability and you do this through Virgin Atlantic however you won't simply be able to say Virgin Atlantic explore here from North America over to Asia and then look for flight over to Japan nothing's going to come up there what you have to do instead is go to the search tab you're going to search USA to either Hana or Narita pick your travel date so let's say that we wanted to do something more of a last minute flight and then add anything in the next month you will need to filter it down to say the oper in carrier is NH which is Ana and you want to filter this to business class go ahead and click search there then filter by this is slowest so what you're most likely going to want to do is filter on this source and you want the source to be United where it's showing this 110,000 points don't worry it's not actually going to cost that much but this is where we're going to see availability for Seattle Chicago Houston San Francisco if we wanted to do this from Los Angeles with United there are a couple dates where we could do the 25th or the 27th so what we would do at that point is go over to united we would search from LAX to Han on the date that this is showing so let's do the 27th we can just say the entire month of September flexible dates book with miles one adult in business class find flights however once we get here I don't see any that are actually operated by Ana so let's try this other date the 25th all right here we go this one does have LAX over can operated by the Ana Airline and we do see um this code business class in parenthesis I which means it's a saers space business class and we should be able to get this on Partner Airlines what you do at this point once you found it on United you're going to call Virgin Atlantic I always Google for this one mile at a time article booking Ana first in business class with Virgin Atlantic points where they'll walk you through exactly what you need to do to book this award ticket so what it's going to say is to search for the flight and make sure you can find this code business class I on something like United and then before you transfer any points over to Virgin Atlantic call them using this phone number 800 365 9500 before you transfer in any points call them and make sure that they see the same award availability to tell them you found it on a partner airline with United LAX Hana in this example September 25th here's the flight number here's everything we need do they see it on their side with Virgin Atlantic as well if they say yes they will confirm for you how many points you need to transfer over into your Virgin Atlantic account and it'll transfer pretty much instantaneously from quite a few Airlines if you want to figure out approximately how long it's going to take to transfer over you can select virin Atlantic on the upgraded coins travel partner transfer cheat sheet and so here built will transfer instantly Capital One is instant don't do the Marriott option city is going to take a couple days Chase is almost instant and AMX would take one to two days therefore I would go with one of these almost instant options I would use Chase I would use Capital One I would use built I personally am very risk averse and very skittish when it comes to transferring my points over to an airline so I like to avoid the ones where it says it's going to take a couple days that's why I don't use the Ana system too much I would rather try to find it on a partner Airline like United move my points instantly over to Virgin Atlantic so while I still have their customer representative on the phone they can just book it for me right then and there you won't be able to do this on your own on Virgin Atlantic's website you do have to do it over the phone but this is exactly how you find the different flight deals available so that you can fly on A&A business class starting at 45,000 points per person one way I hope you found those tutorials useful suggestions for future topics are always welcome in the meantime if you enjoyed these tutorials I think you'll enjoy this video next
