How to Visit 3 Disney Destinations on 1 Airfare
This post covers the concept of multi-stop airfare, including stopovers and open-jaw flights, and how these perfectly legitimate, but little understood tools can be used to book airfare to Tokyo, Hong Kong, Honolulu, and back for roughly the same price as a single round-trip flight to Hong Kong. That means visiting Tokyo Disney Resort, Hong Kong Disneyland, Aulani, and A Disney Resort & Spa for roughly the same airfare cost as just one of those destinations.
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Except in this case. This is totally legit. We are dubbing this incredible trip the “Disney Grand Circle Tour of the Pacific Rim.” Who needs Adventures by Disney when you have blog posts for Making Your Own Adventures…by the Brickers?! 😉
If the airfare terms above don’t make much sense now, fear not, as by the end of this post you will be a master (or at least an apprentice…I’m not sure how the whole ranking system works!) in advanced airfare bookings. Note that we just updated this post in 2016 with a bit more information if you want to use this for a stop in China to do Shanghai Disneyland. That update is on Page 2–we didn’t rewrite the entire thing, so make mental substitutions as appropriate.
Over the last couple of years, we have become pretty big advocates of traveling to the international Disney theme parks. Understandably, a lot of Disney fans have legitimate concerns about the cost of the trip and the discomfort with international travel. While we have received a number of positive comments and emails from many of you who are planning visits to Tokyo Disney Resort, we understand that it’s not a possibility for everyone. We get that. Our goal with our posts on the international parks is not to boast about our travels or rub how great these places are in anyone’s face. Rather, we want to bring awareness of these parks that are seldom-visited by Americans, but are really worth experiencing for those who have the time and resources.
We have pointed out in the past that these international trips don’t have to be as expensive as many people assume they are (see our Tips for Saving Money at Tokyo Disneyland post), and depending upon your party size, a trip to Tokyo may cost about the same as a trip to Walt Disney World. In fairness, this is typically only true for those without multiple children, those who can travel during non-peak times, and live near a major international airport or can save miles for the trip. To be very clear, we are in no way saying that a trip to Asia is “cheap” or even something that anyone can do. These days, a trip to any Disney park is something out of reach for much of the world’s population (so we should all be thankful 🙂 ). Our only point is that it’s worth crunching the numbers before dismissing it out of hand.
With all of that said, the biggest obstacle many if not most readers have presented to us is the cost of airfare. No surprise. Airfare is a per-person cost that (obviously) increases as your party size increases. In comparing the cost of a Tokyo visit versus a Walt Disney World visit, airfare is also where the largest price difference lies. In fact, in terms of park tickets and nice hotel accommodations, Tokyo and Hong Kong are actually cheaper than Walt Disney World in most cases.
Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do to decrease the cost of a flight to Asia, short of advising you to plan early, use available tools to your advantage, and be flexible on dates. Airfare to Asia is expensive, in most cases over $1,000 round-trip per person. However, what we can do is increase the perceived value of that single, expensive airfare with stopovers and open-jaw flights? Interested in visiting Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Honolulu to do the “Disney Grand Circle Tour of the Pacific Rim,” all for about the price of a round-trip flight to Hong Kong? Read on!
Hawaii, Japan, and Hong Kong
NOTE: This section was originally written in 2014–none of it has been updated to account for adding Shanghai into the trip. As you’ll read on page 2, Honolulu is probably out of the question if you’re thinking of adding Shanghai. However, this all remains relevant and necessary reading if you don’t understand the concepts behind multi-city airfare.
The first step is understanding what the terms I mentioned above–stopover and open jaw flights–mean.
A stopover means exactly what it sounds like it means: it’s a stay in a connection city for more than 24 hours and less than the duration of your trip. Stopovers are naturally occurring, meaning that they are permissible only in cities that are on a normal flight route. In other words, some flights to your final destination would be making the stop there anyway. On a flight to Asia, Honolulu is a natural stopover (as are a variety of other cities within Asia itself).
An open-jaw flight is a round-trip ticket in which your arrival city and your departure city for your return flight home differ. The path-lines between the airports in the middle form an open angle, rather than the norm of a closed loop, resembling an open jawline, hence the name.
This one is a little more difficult to understand, but an example would be flying into Los Angeles, renting a car and taking a road trip, then flying home out of San Francisco. In the case of international travel, an open-jaw flight is often used because overseas budget carriers make it much cheaper to “country hop” with individual, one way tickets, rather than including all of these tickets on your main airfare.
In most cases, so long as the stopover and open-jaw are naturally occurring, there is no added fee for either of them, or only a small fee (like $50). This depends entirely on the air carrier, and with some carriers, it’s easier to book these than it is with others. In our experience, United (and its affiliates) are by far the best option to use.
Hopefully this makes sense so far, if not, it will become more clear once we start looking at the airfare routes. To illustrate, we will look at two sample itineraries out of Los Angeles in late September. To do this, you’ll want to go to ITA Software, which is the airfare search engine everyone should use. Always.
I’m using Los Angeles for this example because it’s the easiest airport to use due to its heavy traffic. The same principles here can be applied to any city with a major international airport. We have booked tickets for ourselves like this out of Los Angeles, Chicago, and Indianapolis. One thing I’ll put out there up-front is that this is a lot of work.
It can require a lot of date-tweaking and the cheapest airfare might requiring you to drive or fly to another city (this is what we did when we booked the flight out of Los Angeles…and we added a day in Disneyland for good measure!). This is not an easy or simple process, and can be very frustrating as you experiment with different route options (hint: new tabs in your browser are your friend), but it is incredibly rewarding once you find an itinerary that works! Ever found a $100 bill on the ground? It’s sort of like that, except you earned this, and you’ll “find” more than $100 worth of value in this case.
To start, we highly recommend doing a month by month search to find general date ranges with cheaper flights. We do this right off the bat so we know if certain months are too expensive, and thus a waste of time for the subsequent searches. Once you’ve found some dates that seem good price-wise, narrow your search to more specific dates. Here’s what your first search will look like the screenshot below (click to enlarge):
Note that I’ve included a range of dates for the duration of the trip. This also helps in finding less expensive flights.
I used the month of September because that’s typically a good month (price-wise) to travel. You’ll notice that the lowest rates here start at $733, although our Los Angeles to Hong Kong rate will be higher than that. This is because the $733 rate is for carriers that either don’t do stopovers, or don’t do them where we will want to do them. So, technically you can get this flight for lower than the price we discuss below (if you do a search for Los Angeles to Tokyo, the rates are all above $900 on this calendar, so a trip to Tokyo would cost basically the same amount as the lowest available round-trip in the entire month of September).
Since September is a good month, we now know that it’s worth spending our time doing some exhaustive searches during this month. At this point, you can jump right into the multi-stop searches! Here’s our home screen on ITA Software for just those:
To run this search, click the “Multi-city” tab at the top, then enter your flights. First is LAX to Honolulu (HNL). Flight 2 is HNL to Tokyo (all airports). Flight 3 is Hong Kong (all aiports) to LAX. Again note that you have no flight between Tokyo and Hong Kong at this point. Most airlines allow only one stopover and one open-jaw per trip, meaning that if you added the Tokyo-Hong Kong connection here, you’d either end up with no results, or an airfare at least twice this cost. We’ll book the Tokyo-Hong Kong connection later.
Another thing to notice here is that I did +/- 1 or 2 days for these flights. For best results, start with +/- 2 days for each of these. Be careful if you’re doing a shorter trip for all of these stops, as you might end up with results giving you only a day or so in Honolulu.
This search will take a loooooong time to complete, as the little gnomes that move data around on the internet (pretty sure gnomes power the internet, right?) have a lot of work to do. Eventually, you’ll receive a screen of results like the one above. For my sample flight, when I searched today, I found an all-inclusive ticket for $987.
Note that you will pick each flight individually (above are the options for flight 1), so the $987 number is just a starting price. This is exactly how flight-booking works on a normal round trip. Let’s pick options for each leg and take a look at our results…
For this sample flight, I selected the cheapest options on each leg of the airfare, making my total $987. Since I was only doing this search for the sake of the blog post, I was okay with the cheapest flight times. When you actually do this yourself, don’t just look for the cheapest flights, look for the ones that work best to maximize your time in each location. It’s well worth paying $1,050 versus $987 if you like the slightly more expensive flight options a lot more. As you can see, a big chunk of that is taxes and various security fees.
Once you’re at this screen, open a new tab and go directly to the air carrier’s site, replicate the search, and book the flight. You cannot book flights on ITA Software, it’s just a research tool. However, it’s much more advanced (and works better) than other search engines. No surprise there…it’s owned by Google.
We still need to get from Tokyo to Hong Kong, so let’s book a separate one-way ticket…
We have a few options here for 16,570 Yen. That works out to be about $161. When we’ve done this in the past, <$100 flights have not been uncommon, so keep searching until you find something with which you’re comfortable.
You’ll notice that the main airfare above is on United. I love United, especially for flights originating out of Los Angeles, where they usually have their best crews. However, if you can find the same price–or even only a slightly higher one–on a foreign carrier, do not hesitate to book with the foreign carrier. In our experience, the foreign carriers are all better than the US legacy carriers. My personal favorite is ANA. Sometimes, you can get the best of both worlds with flights that are booked via United but operated via ANA. Frequent flier miles plus impeccable service and quality, woo hoo!
While this particular airfare may not work for you–or anyone–the idea of a $987 multi-stop flight (plus $161 for the connection) taking you to Hong Kong, Tokyo, Honolulu, and back should be pretty exciting. (If you didn’t want to do all three stops, you could drop one location and just do the stopover, saving the cost of the connecting fare.) It’s still a lot of money, but for a once in a lifetime Disney Grand Circle Tour of the Pacific Rim, I think it’s something worth saving for.
Just to demonstrate how much more value you get by utilizing the stopover and open-jaw, let’s take a look at just how much the round-trip to Hong Kong for the exact same dates would cost on United…
We start with the normal round-trip search screen, specifying our days based upon the travel dates determined in the last search…
…and for United, the minimum cost of the flight is $940! That means the open-jaw to Tokyo and the stop-over in Honolulu added about $50 in cost, almost all of which is accounted for in various fees and taxes in Tokyo and Honolulu.
Here’s the final booking screen showing those fees and other added costs. If you’re taking a trip to Asia, as you can see, it really makes sense to at least do a stopover, as a single-stop round trip flight costs about the same price.
As you can see, your total airfare amount is going to be over $1,000 with the connection. No matter how you slice it, that’s a lot of money. For many people, that alone is a deal-breaker, no matter how many locations they would get to see in the process to give them added “value.” It’s just way outside of their budget. If that’s the case for you, we totally understand and, again, don’t mean to imply that anyone can do this, or that it’s cheap.
If this airfare is within your budget, though, we would recommend giving this trip or a trip like it serious thought. If you can afford the added cost of the flights, there really is no reason not to go. As mentioned, Deluxe caliber hotels in Asia are cheaper, as are park tickets. Food is about the same cost as it is in the United States. Aulani is a different story entirely, as it’s more expensive across the board, but you could always drop that from the trip if money is an issue, or do a stopover in a destination that is entirely non-Disney.
If it’s a matter of not wanting to step outside your comfort zone, you would be surprised just how “comfortable” both Tokyo Disney Resort and Hong Kong Disneyland are.
I found your site because we were slightly interested in going to TDL and after I found this article its gone from slightly to it is going to happen! I didn’t believe from your blog that linked me to this article that it was possible. All flights Sea – Tokyo were starting around 1200 and up to 1500. Doing your suggestions dropped the price to total of 960! my mind is totally blown! Thank you thank you thank you for this! Not only are we planning on TDL but now a couple days in Hawaii and a day or two at HKDL!
Pretty crazy how it works, right? Seattle is a great starting place for a trip, so if you’re really flexible with dates and happen to hit an airfare sale, you could score all 3 destinations for $700-800. $960 is still pretty good, though. Have a great trip!
The same thing happened for us just now! I have been simultaneously planning/pricing a trip to Scotland/Paris and seeing DLP, and planning a trip to see Japan for TDL and then some mountain time. I was leaning toward the European vacation because of pricing (free lodging) and the confidence I will have food I like.. but after my flight prices going from 1200 for JUST Japan, to $902 with a stop in HK as well, I am thinking we may be taking that Asian trip sooner than later!! I am so wigged out! Excellent tip Tom.
I wanted to drop you a line to say, Thank you again, Tom. Your Hong Kong & Japan Disneyland write-up has truly convinced my husband and I to take this trip. We are VERY EXCITED… Found our flights on the ITA Matrix via United and ANA. We are originating out of San Francisco to Hong Kong to Tokyo then back to SFO. This trip costs $1,100.70 per person. (I think that was a pretty decent deal). We are using our DVC points to stay 3 nights at the Hong Kong Disneyland and 3 nights at the Tokyo Disneyland. We are staying 2 additional nights at the Tokyo Disneyland at our own expense. I cannot THANK YOU enough for giving us the confident we needed to do this. Thank you for all you do…and more power to your continued Disney travels and your awesome photography…
Thank you,Tom. This article has inspired me to convince my husband to jump on this opportunity and do this Disney Asia Tour…now my question is: Can you recommend a travel agent in the US to book our flight based in what I found on the ITA Mattix website??
I do not know of any. I think you are going to have a difficult time finding a Disney travel agent who is 1) knowledgeable about this stuff, and 2) who will book for you. Unlike Walt Disney World, there’s no travel agent commission for Tokyo Disney Resort, and even if there were, most don’t have a ton of knowledge about it.
IMO, your best bet is going to be following the info in the blog posts here (and elsewhere) and planning this trip yourself.
There is definitely travel agent commission for booking Asia, it’s just not from the same Disney company (Tom since you many times stay in Hiltons and Hyatts these can be booked through travel agents at the same rate as direct) – I would suggest finding a travel agent well versed in China and Japan. Some travel agents might mostly work on US Disney trips where as others might do worldwide trips with Disney as an added bonus. 🙂
Interesting article Tom. Back in 2013, I had the opportunity to visit all 11 open Disney Themeparks (5 Resorts) in one calendar year. I have 4 Annual Passes to prove it. 🙂
This year, I am on pace into doing it again. In December, I’m going to head over to Paris and spend New Years Eve and New Years Day at the parks. Note, spending New Years Day at Disney Paris gives me a jump start on 2015 Calendar year.
How am I able to do this? Well, I am fortunate enough that my employer has sent me on an international work assignment and part of the assignment is a periodic roster break that I have taken advantage of to galavant around the globe. I miss family and friends back at home in SoCal but having the opportunity to visit Hong Kong and Tokyo gives me enough Disney magic to feel at home. 🙂
Goal for 2015 … looking forward to visiting the Shanghai park in late 2015.
Great article as an Australian Disney fanatic the airfares are our major stumbling point to getting to the park more often. We are due to fly out in 18 days and will definitely be using the ITA search engine in the future the airfares for our upcoming trip cost over $9,000 for our family of 5.
Love your blog, always find it very informative.
Gwen
Tom, I had dreamed about one day visiting the international Disney resorts. I could see us doing France but couldn’t see doing both Tokyo and HongKong not to mention Shanghai. One nice long vacation might be what we need instead of multiple small ones. This is a fantastic idea and one I’ll use in planning my other upcoming trips not just Disney! Thank you so much!
What a great article!
One point was raised about “travel hacking” and the usage of “points.” These can be very valuable for dream trips.
I don’t necessarily view the techniques as providing free travel, but instead subsidized travel.
It can be tough finding award tickets for just 2 people at times, and expanding that to a family of 3, 4…well, you get the picture.
But if you’re a family of 4, and 2 of those tickets are covered by an award, then the trip becomes more reachable.
For example, on United there’s availability for 2 people on October 1 for SFO-HKG, with an October 14 NRT-SFO return, for 75K miles for each person in economy class.
That’s a lot of miles to have to come up with! But I bring up the example because using travel hacking techniques (and strategic selection of credit cards) can “cover” ~$2K of the trip expenses.
There’s a lot more that can be said on this topic, but dedicated blogs and forums may be a better locale. 🙂
One more point to mention: your stay in HNL isn’t technically a stop; it’s a layover :). Because this is an international itinerary, and you’re on the ground less than 24 hours, it’s not considered a stopover. You can string together a number of those with a ticket, presuming you don’t mind short visits along the way to your final destination. :). (If you push out your departure date a little HNL-HKG, it bumps up the fare ~$100.)
Excellent tips about using points. There are entire blogs dedicated to the subject, and I’d highly recommend anyone who is interested seeking those out. They are very, very helpful.
As for the HNL stop…I didn’t even notice that it was a <24 visit. D'oh! I put in the +/- 1 day search, and just went with the results without closing scrutinizing. Obviously, no one is going to want to visit Aulani for less than a day, anyway.
But yeah, you're right about stringing together a bunch of layovers to quickly see other places.
I wish I hadn’t read this… not I’m re-thinking this year’s travel plans. I tried out your tips and the airfare is much cheaper than I anticipated – about $1400 from DC which is fantastic. While the airfare is totally doable – the $200/night for hotels is what’s really stopping me. Now I’m researching cheap hotels in the Disney areas to see if I can actually swing Tokyo and Hong Kong Disney this fall 🙂 Although will still be way cheaper than my originally planned Australia trip.
Hi Yuliya,
This isn’t a “points” site, but if the thought of signing up for a new credit card doesn’t give you the willies I’d suggest considering if any Hong Kong and/or Tokyo IHG, Starwood, Hyatt, or Hilton properties look worthwhile.
A typical branded credit card sign-up bonus will cover 2 nights, so that could help in seeing if a trip is feasible. But it’s not “free” – there will be some minimum amount that has to be charged to get the bonus. So that means there’s a lag in being able to book award rooms, which is a factor the sooner a trip is.
If you have some flexibility in travel dates, you might actually *start* by looking for hotel rates. I see some nights where the on-site Sheraton is $125/night in the late summer/early fall.
We’ve done on-site and off-site at Tokyo Disney Resort, and I FAR prefer on-site. To the point that I would never even consider off-site again.
Good luck! 🙂
Thanks for the very informative article! I’ll have to keep this strategy in mind for future travel plans. It makes me itch to travel sooner rather than later, but a baby on the way kind of hinders that plan. Not that I’m complaining. 🙂
Don’t know if this is allowed to share here, but below is a link to a travel deal that relates closely to the topics in this article. Hope it helps!
http://slickdeals.net/f/6991886-cathay-pacific-deal-of-the-month-free-sidetrip-to-japan-with-purchase-of-ticket-to-hong-kong-1-150?
Of course it’s allowed! I’ve heard Cathay Pacific is a GREAT airline, although I’d prefer to do a stopover rather than a side-trip.
This article is so useful! My husband has to go to Asia a couple times of year for work. After about an hour of planning last night we found a way for him to visit Tokyo for a day on the way there, and Hong Kong on the return — and it’s significantly less (by almost $1000) than what he paid last time! Thank you 🙂
Yeah, one thing that I forgot to mention is that the stopover may actually make your airfare CHEAPER! One thing I’ve noticed–for us at least–is that airfare to Hong Kong is typically cheaper than airfare to Tokyo. This means that a flight to Hong Kong with a stopover in Tokyo (even if that’s the longer portion of the trip) is typically cheaper than just a round-trip flight to Tokyo.
This is one of those YMMV things, but it’s worth playing around with routes until you can find the cheapest option.
Tom – This blog post was brilliant. It will be an excellent resource for when I’m able to travel a bit more. I love the idea of hitting all three destinations on one trip and being able to break up the long flight on the way over. Thanks for the info!
Wow! Thanks so much for this post. I’m from the UK but it is still massively helpful. Once Shanghai Disneyland is open I have plans to do all 3 Asian Disneys in one trip so this is great.
We will definitely take advantage of this when Shanghai opens. We’d just add that in as another one-way fare inside the open jaw. I haven’t priced it out with that yet, but I assume Shanghai to Hong Kong (or vice-a-versa) is an inexpensive flight.
This is BRILLIANT. I love hacks like this. Sure, it’s complicated, but the payoff is huge.
I have 3 little kids myself, and I don’t see doing country-hopping like that with them any time soon. But you never know…:)
Our first trip to WDW was in April, and I got some helpful info from your site. Thanks! Also, I tend to drool over the gorgeous photos here. I am hoping to grab a few for the photo book I’m making.
For that trip, we used a few credit card sign-up bonuses to get about $1200 toward our expenses. Substantial!
The other day, I got a promo letter in the mail for the Disney Visa. My offer was $200 gift card when you spend $500 in 3 months, but this card is the no-fee one. Yay! I have been ignoring the offers until this point.
If you’re into credit card sign-up bonuses, check out the cards that DO have fees, as their sign-up bonuses are usually much better. Beyond the scope of this post, but Google “credit card churning” to get an idea of the possibilities that are out there for that! 🙂
Yep, we’re slowly credit-card churning! The card I mentioned with the $1200 bonuses was the Barclaycard one. We got two right before they increased the spend threshold to get the bonus, which was great.
I *think* the Disney Visa that typically offered the $200 bonus was the version with the fee, but I could be wrong.
btw, disclaimer for people on the internet: we don’t carry a balance and we charge our normal bills
Great job! I got a lot out of this post, so thanks for putting all the work into it!
WOW!!!! That is some amazing info…. I am printing this for future use!! Wish I would have read that a couple yrs ago… as it stands I have our Disney World/Disney Cruise trips planned out until the end of 2015…. Now that we are trying to have kids, this may have to go on the back burner… but we will be doing this one year…. But now I want to plan this… oh my husband is going to kill me… haa haaaaa
Thanks again…
Some might say this is a good reason to postpone having kids!!! 😉
Love the combination of travel hacking and Disney in this post – two of my passions! I just did Hong Kong Disneyland last month and it was amazing. So, so few Americans there and I’m glad my husband, 5 year old daughter, and I got to experience it. We did Aulani last year – since we live in the SF Bay Area, flights to HNL can be very cheap (we got them RT for under $300 per person, so that is cheap enough to do a standalone trip). Tokyo is next on our list! We’ll be waiting a few years until our baby will be big enough to tag along and enjoy it. In the meantime, we’ll visit Anaheim a few more times.
Since flights to HNL are very cheap out of SFO, you might consider making your stopover in a place that will have more value to you. I haven’t researched it extensively, but I know some routes consider Paris a stopover to Asia. I wouldn’t be surprised if those are the flights originating out of the East Coast, but it’s worth a shot!
You say a stopover is more than 24 hours but less than your entire trip time. Is there a maximum number of days for a stopover? Can you do 3 days or 5 days with no problem?
We did this once coming home from Greece. We had a natural layover in Paris and it was $50 to extend it to a stopover of up to 3 days. Not sure why we were told 3 days was the max, but that was a few years ago.
It all depends upon the airline, each has their own rules. We use United because they are the most lax, and I don’t know of any day limit they have (we have one booked that’s 10 days, so it’s at least that) as far as how long a stopover can be. I’m pretty sure it just needs to fit within the normal window for a round-trip to be completed.
Do you know if certain airlines are excluded from the ITA site? I tried the ITA software for domestic flights and Southwest didn’t come up for a route I know they fly.
To my knowledge, Southwest is the only airline. They don’t allow their fares on any of the airfare search engines.
Good to know it’s only southwest. I knew they weren’t on any of the discount sites but didn’t realize they weren’t even searchable outside their own site. I love this ITA search! So much easier to use than what I’ve been doing. Sigh, if only I could use it for international travel…can’t wait until the toddlers are old enough to make the Disney Grand Tour!
Not in the cards for this family of five, but a very interesting read nevertheless. Maybe someday when we are back down to a family of two… 🙂
Yeah, as soon as you add multiple children to the mix, it becomes tough to justify. Now, you could always leave them at home with relatives! 😉
very interesting. I just read thru and will have to try this later. have you any experience with making the Honolulu stop last, on the way home?
Yeah, you can mix up the order of the stops. You also don’t have to do these three destinations–it works with a variety of places!
Thanks.