American's JFK to Tokyo Haneda Route Starts Feb 18

Great news for NYC based Oneworld flyers who want to visit Tokyo - starting February 18th, American will start their daily JFK-Haneda which leaves JFK at 6:10pm and arrives in Haneda at 10:15pm the next day. While this flight will be good for passengers who need to connect to catch the flight, the late arrival will limit the amount of onward connections. I'm sure AA isn't worried about that since most people flying to Haneda end their journeys in Tokyo and value the close proximity to the city (Haneda is 10km from the city center vs Narita's 66km). For information on how to get from both airports to the city, check out this link.

The Department of Transportation had 4 slots to give to US carriers so in addition to American getting JFK, Delta got LAX and Detroit and Hawaiian received Honolulu. For a rundown on the rationale, check out this blog.

This flight will compliment the current JFK-NRT flight which leaves at 11:35am and arrives in Tokyo at 3:30pm. The aircraft will be a 777, which I recently experienced in first class flying from EZE-JFK. I was not all that impressed.

So if you want to take a quick jaunt to Tokyo using your points, AA makes it really easy and cheap to do so. From October 1 to April 30 they run off-peak economy awards for only 50,000 miles roundtrip and their taxes/fees for JFK-HND-JFK only come out to $44.20 total, whether you redeem for coach, business, or first. There's ton of award space over the next couple months- even on Feb 18th for the inaugural flight.

And if you need to boost your AA accounts, consider opening up a lucrative Citi AAdvantage credit card and sign-up for AA dining.
[card card-name='Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® MasterCard®' card-id='22144516' type='javascript' bullet-id='1']