heybets30
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2010
Big Sighs. We finally pulled the plug for Nov 4-15, our "big" family trip for 2020. This was going to be our 15th anniversary & my 5-0 trip.
FLIGHTS: American Airlines - easy peasy to get mileage for 3 tickets back into the appropriate accounts, and a refund for purchasing award travel over the phone. Done.
PENDING: - Refund through AA for a discounted purchased ($846) child ticket on JAL for our son, who is 11. We put in the request, but it has not gone through yet.
HOTELS:
We had NOTHING booked, since our initial travel/hotels were booked in Jan/Feb 2020, once everything started shutting down in March, we didn't even attempt to book any activities or Japan Rail.
So all-in-all, we're ok financially - especially since we had put out only the airfare for our son & the fees for ticketing AA Award Travel on the phone. We were assured we'd get the child rate from JAL refunded (naturally, it is the ONE JAL flight still scheduled to fly next week from Chicago-Haneda!). It's just a matter of waiting. And, it sounds like the Sheraton was also allowing cancels & refunds on non-refundable rooms, so we're hopeful we'll get the Citibank points replenished. We requested all the cancels Friday/Saturday - just 2/3 days ago, so we were VERY impressed how quickly all the wheels moved & put back into our accounts!!
Instead of Japan, we are now booked for WDW! Haven't been in 25 years. Staying at Pop Century Nov 7-14. We decided to still take that whole week off of work, so why not! We got fully refundable package & air is refundable too, so we are cautiously optimistic we can go. We will make a final decision on Thursday, Nov 5 if we truly feel comfortable flying & taking the kids. Sort of strange that our WDW trip is already $3000 more than we had paid out for Japan! (Thank you credit card rewards!). We'll hold onto our points for a future Japan trip for SURE!
Moving over to the WDW boards now! Hopefully will be back & booked when Japan is "open for tourists" ... we're thinking we'll aim for November 2021, but won't put anything on the books until it is open.
FLIGHTS: American Airlines - easy peasy to get mileage for 3 tickets back into the appropriate accounts, and a refund for purchasing award travel over the phone. Done.
PENDING: - Refund through AA for a discounted purchased ($846) child ticket on JAL for our son, who is 11. We put in the request, but it has not gone through yet.
HOTELS:
- Tokyo - Hotel Mimura Ginza East - 4 nights - they were generous & allowed us to cancel a non-refundable rate (through Citibank Points), That hotel actually CLOSED temporarily and they emailed we would need to select a different hotel, so we had a feeling it wouldn't be an issue.
- Hilton Tokyo Bay - 1 night - booked a non-refundable room using Hotels.com gift Certificate that I bought with Discover points. Hotels.com managed the cancellation & we were refunded the credit.
- PENDING: Sheraton Disneyland - 1 night - still waiting to hear via Citibank Rewards if they will honor the request for a refund of a nonrefundable room rate.
- Kyoto Mimura Hotel - 3 nights - they were also generous & allowed us to cancel a non-refundable rate (through CHASE points). I already have all the points deposited back into my Chase Sapphire account.
- Hotel near Haneda - MyStays - this was a refundable room booked using a Hotels.com gift certificate that I cashed in Discover rewards for. I received the amount back on a hotels.com gift cert.
We had NOTHING booked, since our initial travel/hotels were booked in Jan/Feb 2020, once everything started shutting down in March, we didn't even attempt to book any activities or Japan Rail.
So all-in-all, we're ok financially - especially since we had put out only the airfare for our son & the fees for ticketing AA Award Travel on the phone. We were assured we'd get the child rate from JAL refunded (naturally, it is the ONE JAL flight still scheduled to fly next week from Chicago-Haneda!). It's just a matter of waiting. And, it sounds like the Sheraton was also allowing cancels & refunds on non-refundable rooms, so we're hopeful we'll get the Citibank points replenished. We requested all the cancels Friday/Saturday - just 2/3 days ago, so we were VERY impressed how quickly all the wheels moved & put back into our accounts!!
Instead of Japan, we are now booked for WDW! Haven't been in 25 years. Staying at Pop Century Nov 7-14. We decided to still take that whole week off of work, so why not! We got fully refundable package & air is refundable too, so we are cautiously optimistic we can go. We will make a final decision on Thursday, Nov 5 if we truly feel comfortable flying & taking the kids. Sort of strange that our WDW trip is already $3000 more than we had paid out for Japan! (Thank you credit card rewards!). We'll hold onto our points for a future Japan trip for SURE!
Moving over to the WDW boards now! Hopefully will be back & booked when Japan is "open for tourists" ... we're thinking we'll aim for November 2021, but won't put anything on the books until it is open.