Trip Report: A Birthday Jaunt Across Japan

Mrs. H2O and I are back from a fantastic, 10 day, trip to Japan with some of our Denver based travel friends. To Mrs. H2O’s delight, there wasn’t much in the form of flights on this trip. However, we did stay at some wonderful, and unique, properties during our stay.

Japan has been on our radar for quite some time though various life events prevented us from going for one reason or another. We finally decided that 2025 was the year we were going to make it happen, marking our second trip to Asia this year.



Booking Flights
Booking flights were some of the most straightforward, but stressful aspects of our trip. Japan Airlines operates daily service between Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) and Tokyo’s Haneda Airport (HND) using its flagship Airbus A350-1000 which features the carrier’s newest Business Class seats.



Award availability on these flights is extremely difficult to come by so I checked availability every day at the booking window (roughly a year in advance). Thankfully, we had a range of dates that worked for us and I was able to snag two seats on the Dallas-Tokyo flight. Each seat was booked using 89,000 Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, transferred from American Express Membership Rewards, and $260 in taxes and fees.

I repeated this same process ten days later to book our return flights from Tokyo to Dallas, also on the Japan Airlines A350-1000. Each seat cost the same 89,000 Asia Miles though the taxes and fees were slightly higher at $294 per person. This would give me the opportunity to review multiple Business Class lounges in Haneda’s Terminal 3.

To get from our home in Austin to Dallas and back, I booked a couple of cheap Economy tickets for a couple hundred bucks. We flew Southwest on the way up and American on the way back, though I won’t be reviewing these segments of the trip. We did get a wild diversion on our return flight which turned our 48 minute flight from Dallas to Austin into an eight hour ordeal. Ultimately, our flown routing was as follows:



In addition to the flights, we also booked two trips on the Shinkansen, Japan’s high speed rail network between Tokyo and Kyoto as well as between Osaka and Tokyo. This was one of my most anticipated moments of the trip.

Booking Hotels
The hotels are usually the most straightforward part of my trips but, at one point, we were two weeks from departure and still making changes to our itinerary. Since we were traveling with friends we were trying to coordinate points vs. cash rates and competing hotel statuses.

We were starting the trip in Tokyo and, with hotel prices through the roof, we kept it simple and booked the Tokyo Hilton. Tokyo is extremely spread out and the Tokyo Hilton’s location near Shinjuku Station made it easy to get around the city. We ended up booking our five night stay for $390 per night. Thanks to my Hilton Diamond status we also got access to the Concierge Lounge as well as free breakfast.

From Tokyo we headed off to Kyoto. We were only planning to spend one night there en route to Osaka and Mrs. ATX was set on staying in a traditional Japanese Onsen. I let her handle the planning on that one and she booked us a one night stay at Kyoto Arashiyama Onsen Kadensho for $430. This included all food and complimentary alcoholic beverages with meals.

In Osaka, we took a similar strategy to Tokyo and booked a property near a large railway station. Specifically, we booked The Osaka Station Hotel, a new Marriott Autograph Collection property located adjacent to the city’s primary transportation hub, for 52,000 Marriott Bonvoy points per night.



To wrap up the trip, we had one final night in Tokyo before an early morning flight back to Dallas. There aren’t many great hotel options next to Haneda Airport but I found a Hyatt property that was a roughly 30 minute drive away (which was close in Tokyo terms). Our single night at the Hotel Toranomon Hills – The Unbound Collection by Hyatt, ran us $275.

In This Trip Report:
- American Airlines Flagship Lounge Dallas-Ft. Worth (DFW)
- Japan Airlines A350-1000 Business Class (DFW-HND)
- Hilton Tokyo
- Exploring Tokyo
- Shinkansen Nozomi Super Express (Tokyo-Kyoto)
- Exploring Kyoto
- Kyoto Arashiyama Onsen Kadensho
- THE OSAKA STATION HOTEL, Autograph Collection
- Exploring Osaka
- Shinkansen Nozomi Super Express Green Car (Osaka-Tokyo)
- Hotel Toranomon Hills – The Unbound Collection by Hyatt
- Japan Airlines Sakura Lounge Tokyo Haneda
- Japan Airlines Sakura Sky View Lounge Tokyo Haneda
- Cathay Pacific Lounge Tokyo Haneda
- Japan Airlines A350-1000 Business Class (Tokyo-Dallas)

NOTE: This is a live trip report and each segment will be posted once it becomes available. Tiger Droppings limits posts to 7,900 characters so I'll only be able to post summaries of each section of this trip. The full versions can be found on my website.