Asian Adventure: Roof of the World Tour Overview

Asian Adventure: Roof of the World Tour Overview
Asian Adventure: Cathay Pacific B777-300ER Business Class San Francisco to Hong Kong
Asian Adventure: Cathay Pacific Lounge Review: The Cabin at HKG
Asian Adventure: Cathay Dragon A330-300 Business Class Hong Kong to Beijing
Asian Adventure: Regent Beijing Hotel
Asian Adventure: Beijing - Dongcheng District
Asian Adventure: Beijing - The Great Wall
Asian Adventure: Beijing - Run-ze Jade Garden
Asian Adventure: Beijing - The Sacred Way of the Ming Tombs
Asian Adventure: Beijing - The Legend of Kung Fu
Asian Adventure: Beijing - Tiananmen Square
Asian Adventure: Beijing - The Forbidden City
Asian Adventure: Beijing - Hutong Tour via Rickshaw, Tea Tasting, Flying to Xi’an
Asian Adventure: Hotel Shangri-La Xi’an
Asian Adventure: Xi’an - Qing Dynasty Terra Cotta Warriors
Asian Adventure: Xi’an - Tang Dynasty Dinner and Show
Asian Adventure: Xi’an Wrap-Up, Flying to Lhasa, Lhasa Home Visit
Asian Adventure: Shangri-La Hotel Lhasa
Asian Adventure: Lhasa - Jokhang Temple and Barkhor Market
Asian Adventure: Lhasa - Canggu Nunnery and Sera Monastery
Asian Adventure: Lhasa - Potala Palace
Asian Adventure: Leaving Lhasa and Flying to Chongqing
Asian Adventure: Viking Emerald
Asian Adventure: Shibaozhai Temple
Asian Adventure: Cruising the Three Gorges
Asian Adventure: Three Gorges Dam
Asian Adventure: Jingzhou City Walls Tour
Asian Adventure: Wuhan - Hubei Bells Performance and Provincial Museum
Asian Adventure: Shanghai - Shanghai Museum
Asian Adventure: Fairmont Peace Hotel, Shanghai
Asian Adventure: Shanghai - Old Shanghai and Yuyan Gardens
Asian Adventure: The New Otani Tokyo Hotel
Asian Adventure: Tokyo - City Tour
Asian Adventure: Mt. Fuji and Hakone Tour Returning by Shinkansen
Asian Adventure: ANA Suites Lounge Review, Tokyo Narita
Asian Adventure: All Nippon Airways B777-300ER First Class Tokyo Narita to Houston

As you can see from the list of future posts, this was quite the trip!  We had an excellent time and it's been fun to re-live it as I put these posts together.

Why Asia?

The last few years, several of us have been to Europe together so this time I suggested looking to the other side of the world for our adventure.  Working with my travel agent we were able to sign up for Viking's Roof of the World tour that covers several cities in China and one in Tibet (which, according to the Chinese is part of China and not a separate country).  Then three of us signed up for the four-night extension to Tokyo.

Roof of the World Itinerary
(map courtesy Viking River Cruises)

Our tour began in Beijing where we spent several days sightseeing in the rain.  Of course on the day we left town the weather was beautiful as we flew to Xi'an where we saw the famed terra cotta warriors.  From there we continued west to Lhasa, Tibet where by the time we got off the plane we realized we were high up in the mountains where the air was thin.  After we were finally allowed to leave Lhasa (through no fault of our own!) we flew to Chongqing where we boarded the Viking Emerald, the boat that would sail us down the Yangtze River.  We had several stops including the Shibaozhai Temple, the Three Gorges and the Three Gorges Dam, the city of Jingzhou before docking in Wuhan for a day.  From Wuhan we flew to Shanghai where we spent two nights.  At that point the Roof of the World tour was complete and the nine Nashvillians returned home while the other three of us took Viking's extension to Tokyo for three nights before we, too, made the journey back to the US.

Getting There

Typically on these trips my travel pal C and I are the only ones using airline miles to get to and from our destination.  This time half of the twelve people would be using miles to travel.  So my challenge was how to get us all there on the same day and back to our homes using miles.  Fortunately we all had varied enough currencies that it worked out.

Of the six of us using miles, we all (save one) had enough AA miles to carry us one direction and either AA miles or another currency to take in the other direction.  As three of us would be returning from Shanghai and the other three from Tokyo that make the return flights a little easier because I only needed to find three award seats on each day.  The biggest challenge was finding six seats to Beijing on the same day.

Since the five of us had AA miles to work with (and the other planned to pay cash) I focused on trying to find award seats on Japan Airlines, since American so rarely opens up award seats on their own planes.  For a few weeks in advance of the date that we would be able to book our seats I monitored JAL award space and noticed that sometimes they made four business class award seats available on their flight from San Diego to Tokyo Narita and there were sometimes two seats available on their Chicago to Narita flight.  That would have been perfect for us...but of course on the day we needed flights there were only two seats opened from San Diego and only one seat from Chicago.  Since C lives in Chicago, she snapped that seat up and my friends T&B from Nashville booked the San Diego seats.  Unfortunately JAL only opened two business class seats on the Tokyo-Beijing leg so B flew economy class for the last four hours, bless her.  But at least they could meet up in Tokyo, fly into Beijing and get to the hotel together.

That left three of us needing a way over.  I found two business class seats on Cathay Pacific from San Francisco to Beijing via Hong Kong.  My friend J from Nashville could even find award flights to get to SFO, albeit in economy, so she booked that.  At the time I needed to book my ticket there were no award seats (business class or economy!) to any AA hub from Memphis so I just booked the SFO-HKG-PEK flight and would eventually purchase a positioning flight to San Francisco.

That left my friend M without a ride.  Though he had never earned any AA miles, I had persuaded him to open up an AA mileage account "just in case".  I had him do this because you cannot purchase AA miles if your account has been open for less than 30 days.  As I had been watching for the business class seats for J and myself, I noticed that every few days a first class seat on the same flight would open up for a day or two and then disappear.  As M had been planning to purchase a business class flight anyway, when that seat opened up again we called American and had it put on hold. (AA has a generous hold policy where you can hold a seat for a week before actually booking it with miles.) Then he was able to buy the miles needed for a first class seat - for less than he'd have paid if he purchased a business class seat outright!

So the three of us would all be on the same flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong.  J and I were on the same connecting flight to Beijing and M arrived about an hour later so we just waited for him at the airport and all rode to the hotel together.

Those of us using miles all arrived at the hotel on Saturday before the tour officially began on Sunday, which gave us a day to sleep in and do a little wandering around the area before the rest of the folks arrived on Sunday afternoon.  Four of those folks who purchased their air through Viking traveled in economy on American and flew Nashville-Dallas-Beijing.  One couple flew in paid business class and flew Nashville-New York/JFK-Beijing with the first leg on AA and the second leg on Air China.

These were the outbound flights for those on award flights:

Award Flights to Asia
(all flight maps made on gcmap.com)

While these were the flights for those who purchased their flights:

Revenue Flights to Asia

Getting Back

For our trips home we needed three seats back from Shanghai and three from Tokyo.

J still had AA miles to use and T and B had a combination of Delta miles and Amex Membership Rewards (MR) points that could be used.  For T and B, the priority was getting home fairly quickly and the easiest - though not least expensive - way to do that was to transfer some MR points to their Delta account so they'd have enough to book a one-stop flight back to Nashville via Detroit.  J was originally booked on an early morning flight back on Cathay via Hong Kong and Chicago.  It was going to be tough as the flight left Shanghai in the 7 AM hour, meaning she'd have to be at the airport at 5 AM.  As luck would have it, there was a schedule change and American rebooked her so that she flew JAL to Tokyo and then caught an AA flight to Dallas.  It just so happened she was then able to catch up with four of the other Nashvillians who were returning directly from Shanghai and they were all able to catch the last leg of the flight together.

For those of us who took the extension to Tokyo, C and M each had United miles to use while I had Chase Ultimate Rewards points to use.  United charges fewer miles for international flights on their own planes so C and M were each able to book the new Polaris First Class on a non-stop from Tokyo to Chicago (where M would spend a few days before returning to Memphis).  I found award space in First Class on the ANA Tokyo-Houston flight.  I considered transferring the points to United but I saved 10K points by transferring them to Singapore Airlines instead and then using those miles to book the flight on ANA.

The four people flying economy had another one-stop flight on American: Shanghai-Dallas-Nashville.  The couple in paid business class flew Air China from Shanghai to San Jose, California and from there flew to Nashville via Houston on United.

The folks who flew back to Nashville from Shanghai took these routes:

Flights back to Nashville from Shanghai

While those of us who went to Tokyo returned home via these routes:

Flights back to the US from Tokyo Narita

This was quite the adventure so stay tuned!