A while back, Asiana Airlines changed the equipment on two of its Seoul Incheon – Tokyo Narita flights in April 2023 to the Boeing 747-400. I thought it would be great to fly on one of the flights but at first, I didn’t see any award availability. That changed, however, when I checked on the day of the first flight – a week before the second flight.
After confirming with my wife that she would be OK with me being away overnight (for the first time since our daughter was born), I figured out I would regret it later if I didn’t go catch the flight. And that’s how this trip was born.
Flights
To minimize time away from home, I played around with a couple of different options. I looked at potentially buying a ticket with one of the low-cost airlines like Jin Air and Jeju Air connecting Tokyo with Seoul and then booking an award ticket back from Seoul. I also looked at using Delta miles to book a one-way ticket to Seoul on Korean Air.
Ultimately, however, I settled on a roundtrip award ticket that cost me 15,000 ANA miles and just over $100 in taxes and fees. Because there was no award availability on non-stop flights from Tokyo to Seoul, I booked the following flights:
- NH259 from Tokyo Haneda to Fukuoka on an ANA Airbus A321neo
- OZ135 from Fukuoka to Seoul Incheon on an Asiana Airlines Airbus A321neo
- OZ102 from Seoul Incheon to Tokyo Narita on an Asiana Airlines Boeing 747-400
I will be writing a regular review of the first two and taking a detailed look at Asiana’s 747 operations including a report of the flight.
Because of ANA award ticketing rules, I was also able to add two extra domestic flights (Sapporo to Fukuoka via Nagoya) that I needed to finalize the routing for my next trip to the ticket, essentially free of charge. More about that in that trip’s report, though.
Lounges
Before catching the domestic flight to Fukuoka, I stopped by the ANA Lounge at Tokyo Haneda courtesy of my ANA Platinum status. That said, I won’t be reviewing the lounge this time. I reviewed it a while back and the review still reflects accurately what the lounge is like. You can find it here.
In Fukuoka, I spent a couple of hours in Lounge Fukuoka – a contract lounge in the airport’s international terminal that’s used by most airlines. The lounge was closed for quite some time during COVID-19 and has recently reopened. I reviewed it in detail here.
There are two other lounges in the international terminal at Fukuoka airport. The first of those is Lounge TIME International which is generally accessible with some Japanese credit cards but has not reopened yet after it has been closed down during the pandemic. The other one is Korean Air’s KAL Lounge. The lounge is accessible using Priority Pass but only during certain hours which did not overlap with my time at the airport. I reviewed it in the past, though.
Lastly, there are multiple Priority Pass lounges at Seoul Incheon that I haven’t visited in a few years. Originally, I was thinking of revisiting some of those to update my reviews, in the end I spent most of the time prior to my flight back to Tokyo watching the 747-400 at the departure gate.
That said, I did pay a brief visit to one of the Asiana Airlines business class lounges (the “West” one) which I was able to access as a Star Alliance Gold member traveling on Asiana. I reviewed the lounge in detail here.
Accommodation
With my flight from Fukuoka to Seoul Incheon scheduled to arrive at 10:10PM and my flight back to Tokyo Narita – the main reason behind this trip – leaving at 9AM the next morning, I decided to look for the cheapest possible hotel near the airport.
There are some hotels directly at the airport but they were all relatively pricey. As such, I decided to book GL City Hotel Incheon Airport near Unseo station which is just one stop away from the airport. I booked one night in a Deluxe Double Room at the hotel through Agoda for 58,752 KRW (just under $50).
Since this was my first time staying there, I reviewed the GL City Hotel in detail. Previously, I stayed at the Howard Johnson by Wyndham Incheon Airport which is located on the other side of Unseo station.
Summary
Considering that the entire trip took place over roughly 24 hours, it was quite tiring. That said, tiring in a good way. As this was my first pure avgeek international trip in a while, I really enjoyed it. Especially so considering that I got to fly on an Asian Airlines 747-400 for the first time.
Over the coming weeks, I will be publishing the flight, lounge, and hotel reviews related to this trip, so stay tuned! Also, since this was my last trip with Japan’s COVID-19 restrictions in place, I will write about my experiences with travel during the pandemic.
