JAL Info and advice please

[SusanN]

I've just come across this site while searching for some answers to a couple of questions on JAL and so I've joined up in the hope that the very well travelled people on here can offer some advice please.
Firstly, I'll state our scenario... we're a family of six (myself, husband, our daughter and her husband and their 2 teenage children, 16 & 14) planning a trip to Tokyo, then on to USA to visit our other daughter and her family who are living in USA (Michigan, working with GM).
We live in WA (about 3-4hrs drive from Perth).

We'd like to fly with JAL in Premium Economy but unfortunately JAL do not fly out of Perth. Have spoken to a couple of travel agents (one online, one locally) but they pretty much insist that we would have to fly PER-SYD and SYD-HND which we really don't want to do. So we've thought a better alternative would be to fly PER-SIN, then SIN-HND. We would fly PER-SIN and rtn on a separate booking, probably Singapore Airlines in economy. Yes, Qantas are codeshare with JAL but their flights do not come up as an option.

I've checked the fares (SIN-HND, HND-JFK, DTW-SIN) on the JAL website and I have to change to their Singapore site to do this booking. As these fares will cost around AUD$20,000 I am a little nervous about doing the booking myself, so I guess I'm really looking for some re assurance that it will be safe to go ahead and do it. (BTW, making our own way from NY to Detroit).
I'd also like to know if JAL add on fees for Credit card transactions, I have checked bookings.com and I can book it with them and they don't add CC fees however, all general advice seems to always say book with the airline direct.
My other question is, I intend to book the return flight from Detroit to Singapore as one ticket which will include quite long layovers of 16.5hrs in Chicago and 20hrs in Tokyo, for which we will stay overnight in hotels. I'd like to know if anyone has any idea if our luggage would be checked right thru to Singapore despite the long layovers (and we would have carry on luggage for our overnight stays).

Sorry for the long winded post and appreciate any help, thank you!

 

[Himeno]

It looks like the cost problem with the circle pacific option is the NY part.
The base fare (before taxes and surcharges) for the LCIR22 is AU$4313, but going too far east in the US would knock the distance past 22000 miles, putting it into the LCIR26 with a base fare of AU$5129. (the circle pacific option would also require going via the AU East coast in one direction)

 

[drron]

The 789 has PE the others don't. The 763 is often used on NRT flight. In fact 3 out of the last 4 times we have flown 712. We use it as it is a day flight.

 

[tdimdad]

This is where I thought a Travel Agent would be able to help but apparently not? (Plus we'd like to avoid Narita for much the same reasons as Sydney!).

You did notice a couple of suggestions for potential travel agents listed in a post above? I've dealt with one of them and they are well-versed in parsing together an itinerary for you for what you're after. Some other people here have some other suggestions, too, if you'd like to have more people to talk to.

 

[madrooster]

This is where I thought a Travel Agent would be able to help but apparently not? (Plus we'd like to avoid Narita for much the same reasons as Sydney!).

Thanks again for all the valuable information, I will take it onboard!

Without seeing dates and itinerary I can't comment directly... but as long as the inventory is there, there's no reason why you cannot have 6 passengers in premium economy.

Happy to have a look for you, please feel free to message me privately.

 

[wandering_fred]

Assuming the planets align I will be doing a very similar trip later in the year, though somewhat simpler with only two passengers

PER-SIN some how in Y -> hotel overnight
JL premium economy awards to Japan connecting to a DONE3 with the first flight on JL. (JL connect on separate tickets). The last RTW stopover will be in SIN for an overnight and then Y back to Perth (and return to Japan later) Note: there were not 6 premium Y seats left on the JL flight after I picked my two.
I looked at the DCIRy tickets and with east cost USA stops and a return via Perth (both KUL and HND/NRT are cheap starting points) the mileage simply did not work out with in the limits. Note there are a few flights on that proposed trip where finding 2 D class seats is not "promised".
There are simply not enough premium Y connections out of SIN/KUL/BKK to HKG/Japan for tickets connecting in Japan to the USA. So formulating two separate premium Y tickets SEAsia-USA-SEAsia had that 7 hour flight in Y which was a deal breaker.
If you are 4/5 hours north from Perth, you might consider the twice weekly 3K flights BME-SIN.
If I had not already booked the award flights I would consider as Mrs WF will need 2 more squiggles.

Happy wandering
Fred