After a fun stop in LA, we flew on to Tokyo. This part of the trip actually came together because we were having trouble finding four business class seats to Bangkok for our tour with Ben’s Big Deals. Since we were essentially creating our own layover, we thought… why not take the opportunity to get a taste of Japan and spend a few days in Tokyo?

It turned out to be the perfect way to start our Asia adventure 🇯🇵

🌴 Tokyo Highlights

✨ Experiencing a completely different culture
 (we get why everyone wants to install a bidet after experiencing them all over Japan public restrooms)

🎨 Visiting the incredible TeamLab Planets immersive art museum


🗺️ Taking a day tour so we could see some of the main attractions — the fish market, temples, lovely parks and shopping streets (checkout the baby pig cafe!) were definite highlights


🍣 A fun food tour (we love these! Such a great way to try lots of local dishes, and our guide was fantastic)


🍸 Reconnecting with my high school friend Emi

🍜 Incredible food everywhere we went. Our best meal was at the Planets museum—vegan ramen served in the dark, no talking, just sitting at a mirrored table where the only thing we could see was the ramen and shadows of people sitting across from us. It turned the whole experience into pure focus on the flavors. Unforgettable.

✨
🚶‍♀️Taking in Japans famously polite culture and its iconic, bustling street crossings.


🏪 And it sounds funny, but we loved popping into a 7/11 — they’re very different than the ones in the U.S. - great prepared meals!

✈️ How We Did It

LAX → HND We flew Singapore Airlines business class, which we booked through Air Canada Aeroplan (they’re in the same alliance). There was a transfer bonus when we booked, so the flight cost 62.5k points + about $55 per person — an amazing deal for a 12-hour business class flight 🙌

🏨 Hotels

InterContinental The Strings

We booked two rooms for two nights using the Chase Sapphire Reserve Edit hotel credit.

Total cost per room : $730


• $250 Edit hotel credit applied


• Used 24k Chase points to complete the booking (thanks to the 2¢ per point redemption boost) making out of pocket $0

That made this an incredible deal for a 5-star hotel.

Edit perks included:


✔️ Free breakfast for 2 daily


✔️ Upgrade if available


✔️ $100 property credit
 (we used for dinner the night we arrived)

✔️ Guaranteed 4pm checkout

The hotel was beautiful with incredible service, and it was right next to a subway station, which made getting around Tokyo super easy ✈️🇯🇵

Park Hyatt Tokyo

About a month before our trip, award availability opened up, so we decided to spend our third night here. Park Hyatt is Hyatt’s top luxury brand, and the property was beautiful with breathtaking views — though not quite as conveniently located as the InterContinental.

We used 35k Hyatt points per room (Hyatt’s off-peak pricing). We actually preferred the Intercontinental and it was a better points value.

Our Hyatt Globalist status also included:


✔️ Free breakfast for two


✔️ Room upgrades when available


✔️ Early check-in and late checkout

Our short stay in Tokyo was amazing, and now all of us want to go back and spend much more time exploring Japan.