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.
So I’m a little confused. How do you book your trip back to the US? I followed your instructions but ended up with results that are around $1000 for a one way ticket. I keep rereading this but can’t find the explanation. Any help with this? 🙂
Hi Tom,
I found this blog entry today as I was googling who’s been to all 3 Asia Disney parks.
Have you been to all 3 in one trip HK- Shanghai- Tokyo ? Is there a post beyond this one that explains where you stayed and for how long at each park and how you traveled between HK & Shanghai? I appreciate all the information you share with us readers. I used alot of your information when I planned our family trip to Disneyland during the 60th Anniversary-
rides, what to wear, photography helps, where to eat, etc. Thanks for all you do!!
Andrea
This is AWESOME! Thank you so much for all this detail!
Our daughter was adopted from Wuhan (I know, I know, where is Wuhan? It’s a city of 10 million people in the center of China….yes, 10 million….yet nobody has heard of this city in the US.) We plan on taking her back to her hometown for heritage tour, but also to check off the last 3 Disney parks we haven’t done yet! This post was exactly what I needed as I begin to plan our 2019 Asian adventure. We’d want to spend a week in Wuhan, so we’ll need a visa anyways. What order should we do the parks? We live in Buffalo, NY. We could fly out of NYC or Toronto fairly easily.
I am super interested in doing Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo when we go on our once in a lifetime trip! Can you please explain more about the 144 hour visa thing? And I know you said do Tokyo last, would you recommend doing Hong Kong first?
Which airports from the east coast usually have the cheapest flights to any of the Asian parks. In the beginning stages of planning my trip.
Tom,
Thanks so much for your posts. We always devour your blog! We have been to all the Disney Parks with the exception of Hong Kong and Shanghai, and we are getting ready to remedy that! With three trips to Tokyo Disney Land and Disney Sea under our belts (they really ARE the best), we are ready to tackle the Circle Tour. I agree that the cost of the parks, food, and lodging can all be less expensive in Asia than a trip to WDW (we live on the West Coast), but I want to put in a plug for the Mira Costa. Yes, it is the most expensive hotel I’ve ever stayed in, and YES it is worth every penny to wake up IN A DISNEY THEME PARK. Totally worth the splurge. If you’ve already covered, this then please know that I agree with you, and if you haven’t, then it’s well worth it.
Cheers!
Hello Tom,
It makes me sad that you have to add that long disclaimer in all your posts about Asian Disney Parks. I know it’s par for the course when you put yourself out there on the internet, but come on people – Tom’s doing this for all of us FOR FREE! Give him a break!
Tom, you’re simply amazing to share this information freely, and I for one appreciate it SO MUCH! I always refer to your site when planning our US Disney vacations (your site is the best and most comprehensive, plus I love your gorgeous photos!) I happened to stumble across your posts about Tokyo Disney Resort last year as we were in Disney World and starting to think about getting our next Disney fix! You should feel good that your posts fulfilled your goal – you showed me that visiting TDR was within our reach!
We’re planning to visit TDR in March 2018, and the info you’ve provided is invaluable. How else would we be able to plan this trip without your detailed posts in English? It’s the most complex Disney trip I’ve ever had to plan, and I’m very grateful to have your site to guide me.
So, thank you for all that you do. I hope my comment brightens your day, and I hope you know that there are families like us who are regular, middle-income folks who are able to consider TDR thanks to your website.
Sincerely,
Chrissy from Vancouver, BC (Canada)
Thanks for the very kind comment. It’s always nice to hear sentiment like this! 🙂
The 144 hour visa-free transit is definitely the way to get to Shanghai. We used it to do Tokyo –> Shanghai –> Hong Kong –> Tokyo and it was so much cheaper than needing a visa for China and we had a chance to actually enjoy the city. Just make sure to have all documentation of flights (both into Shanghai and continuing on), hotel confirmations (they called to verify ours), and anything else that will make your transit through immigration easier in Shanghai. We also had a copy of the 144 hours visa-free transit policy with us which proved helpful as our ticketing agent for our flight to Shanghai REALLY wanted us to have visas. We showed her the paper (we had it in both Japanese and English), and she confirmed with a manager, but I have heard of other people having issues as well (especially coming from stateside where the policy is still not well-known).
Shanghai Disney was amazing and worth the trip! We enjoyed it more than we expected and feel that TRON and Pirates are almost worth the trip in-of-themselves! Happy Pacific Park Hopping!
Hi Mary! I would love to do all three next year. How long did you stay at each location? I’m having a lot of difficulty researching how much time we might need to do Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Tokyo altogether.
Thanks!
Kristin
This is so helpful! We are looking at planning a big Disney Asia trip next year! However, I’m struggling with the ITA Matrix. I put all my information in and it spins for a while and then tells me search timed out. Doesn’t matter what order I put things in or the dates I choose. Have you ever dealt with that before in searching on there? I tried both yesterday and today and getting the same thing. Gotta be something I’m missing…..
Hi! Just a quick thank you for this post! My mom is looking at doing Tokyo this coming spring and invited me along. I quickly realized that since I’m going to Disneyland Paris in September and Disneyland Anaheim in December (and Disney World in October and January) that if I’m going to cross an ocean in April I may as well hit all three of the Asia Disney parks while I’m over there, thus visiting ALL OF THE DISNEYS in less than one year. You know, because I’m a crazy person? This was helpful! Thanks!
I am so happy to have discovered this post and your blog. I have an unexpected week of vacation in 2 1/2 weeks and had toyed with the idea of going to Tokyo Disneyland. The airfare price was going to keep me from doing it, until I searched ITA on a whim to go to Hong Kong and Tokyo. I booked yesterday and saved over $400 by flying to Hong Kong first (with a layover in Tokyo, go figure) for 36 hours and then to Tokyo. My layover from Tokyo is in Honolulu, so I probably could have done Aulani if I were so inclined. Thank you!
Awesome article! So interesting to play with the algorithms. Once you find the sweet spot it can be a quarter the cost than if you lay out the cities/dates in the wrong order. I had the best luck playing with United’s website, the key is LA to Shanghai then to Tokyo then back to LA. Look forward to more experimenting by adding in Honolulu.
Tom,
Thanks for writing this! It really makes an experience like this seem well within reach.
I have been having trouble with the ITA Matrix timing out. Does Google Flights multiple city search achieve the same results?
Thanks!
Have you been able to actually book the flights to Shanghai using this method?
It won’t let me book them at all, saying that it can only be done by a licensed travel agent.
Yeah. You’re not trying to book through ITA, are you? They aren’t a booking engine–it’s just a site that details the itinerary so you can use that info to book elsewhere.
Curious to know if Tom or anyone is still using Matrix ITA. No matter what I put in the search, I get an error message that says “Sorry, we’ve encountered an internal error.”
Yep. Used it yesterday, in fact. Not sure if there’s an issue with the searches you’re trying or if the site has problems right now, but it most definitely still works.
We are planning to do this in the near future sometime so I was thrilled to see in my email newsletter that you covered this topic. Saving this and reading this to my husband! Thank you so much for your wonderful information!
Hi Tom,
Have you two started planning any trips that visit Shanghai, Tokyo AND Hong Kong? If so, what did you find to be the best route?
Shanghai or Hong Kong first, then Tokyo, is going to be the path that offers the cheapest route.
So – you’ll be coming home from Tokyo, regardless of whether you start at HK or Shanghai?
Stumbled upon this post while trying to see the feasibility of doing Shanghai, Hong Kong, & Tokyo in one vacation next year. Going to be using some of these tools when I’m ready to pick a date! Hope it works! Thanks!
That’s great. I am trying to do this for the Shanghai opening in 2016. I would like to depart from Frankfurt, Germany and visit Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo. So far when entering generic dates it does not allow me to have stop overs that are longer than a day 🙁 I guess I will have to play with it more.
That’s awesome. We will be moving to Germany in fall so hopefully it is possibly to do the same thing flying out of Frankfurt (minus Honolulu) 🙂