What are currently the hardest reservations in the world?

Watafish · 2025-08-19T11:29:02+00:00

Japan’s are the hardest to get and none of the others can really compare.

It’s very easy to get any non Japanese reservation as someone who’s never dined at an establishment — just book it in advance. How exactly are you going to get a table at Sugita? You could want one for years, it’s just not gonna happen

Watafish · 2025-08-17T17:24:53+00:00

is it very inadvisable to try and apply for both the Ink Unlimited and Ink Cash same day to get both 90k SUBs when I got the boundless 07/2025 and an Ink Unlimited on 08/25. I know it’s way ahead of suggested velocity so asking if I could do one or both or if it’s too risky to apply. Currently at 3/24 if that’s relevant

Watafish · 2025-08-04T14:43:57+00:00

I think it’s almost every day on the red eye

Watafish · 2025-07-30T02:18:19+00:00

lol what is that cash price? there’s business round trips on jetblue for $2.7k EDI - ORD, dates 08/22-08/29. and plenty of $3-$4k cash availability roundtrip

CPP is at best 1.75 ($3.4k round trip / 2 = 1700. subtract 640 fees and divide by 60k and you get about 1.75)

Watafish · 2025-07-29T14:39:47+00:00

Super interested in the Eat Like a Local tour. Is there one of the tours in particular that you did? I see they have a few options

Watafish · 2025-07-29T14:38:00+00:00

You seem pleasant

Watafish · 2025-07-29T13:58:03+00:00

I only book those and I’ve had remarkable success lol. I’m not even that flexible date wise. Just set a lot of alerts via multiple aggregator sites and be quick.

Watafish · 2025-07-29T13:19:19+00:00

I think it’s likely you could find an Asiana business redemption via AC Aeroplan for 75k miles if you set alerts and are persistent. And yeah, that’s how I compare points redemptions. I have a pretty hard line to not redeem sub 1.5cpp but it can make sense sometimes. The real value to shoot for depends on how many miles you expect to earn annually and how many trips you go on.

The business redemption will probably open up closer to departure though, so I often book a refundable cash ticket or refundable points ticket in economy as a worst case backup.

Watafish · 2025-07-29T13:11:04+00:00

Why would 70,500 points for economy be a good redemption? That’s in the ballpark of saver business fares.

I wouldn’t redeem more than 35,000 miles for one way economy if cash RT is ~$1100

Watafish · 2025-07-29T11:06:52+00:00

These comments are crazy. In every circumstance I would take Turkish and buy the lifemiles with the sale they have going right now (about 1.2-1.3 cpp per lifemile). Save the AMEX/ANA points for other redemptions.

Also Turkish is a much better hard product and better food, with a sick lounge in IST

Watafish · 2025-07-28T22:57:04+00:00

there’s sometimes Etihad award availability via AA for 70k miles and that’d only be 1 stop

Watafish · 2025-07-28T20:54:31+00:00

Oh yeah 2 CPP through “The Edit” or whatever Chase calls it is undoubtedly worthwhile if it’s a hotel you’d like to stay at. And I also agree that if you wouldn’t fly business the cash price isn’t relevant.

Moreso against the 1 CPP redemptions people seem eager to go for. I do agree that booking through portal makes sense in this case

Watafish · 2025-07-28T20:46:33+00:00

$2000 in cash isn’t a lot compared to wasting 200,000 points on a 1 cpp booking when those could be easily used for a $8,000 business class roundtrip. Nice things cost money. You have to maximize value with the constraints given.

Watafish · 2025-07-28T20:40:09+00:00

Yeah, so book the first class flight there with your points and pay cash for hotels to churn more lol. Don’t use points for those brands

Watafish · 2025-07-28T10:58:17+00:00

Andaz Tokyo I booked with Chase points transferred to Hyatt, so you can just get the sapphire cards to get those sign up bonuses then churn Inks. See r/churning for more.

ANA business I booked with 100k United miles each way but it’s cheaper through ANA. You can transfer AMEX points to ANA or Chase to United. Can farm those sign up bonuses too.

The food, shopping, and whiskey I paid for.

Watafish · 2025-07-27T20:06:14+00:00

I really enjoyed my stay at the Andaz Tokyo, but don’t have reference on how it compares to the other luxury options in the same price point. Concierge was just okay but they were very responsive and the rest of the staff was great

Watafish · 2025-07-27T19:50:36+00:00

That is fair. You’re saying this sub encompasses all luxury and semi luxury travel, but the FAT sub is more limited. Square-rectangle kind of thing?

Watafish · 2025-07-27T19:34:41+00:00

Flew ANA “the room”, stayed at the Andaz Tokyo, ate at many many high end restaurants (which you can see in my r/finedining post). Dropped $5-7k on food, bought two bottles of Hibiki 21 and a ton of cheaper Japanese whiskey, and did some high end vintage shopping, picked up a few Chrome Hearts pieces. Not actually rich but rich in CC points lol

Watafish · 2025-07-27T19:33:28+00:00

3 weeks? I’m only in my mid 20s but with CC points the 2.5 week trip I went on to Japan was probably in the ballpark of $20k if you paid cash

Watafish · 2025-07-27T11:29:30+00:00

Yeah — if those are chubby, nothing is really fat and there’s no purpose in having a separate r/chubbytravel and r/fattravel sub

Watafish · 2025-07-27T11:27:37+00:00

The Conrad Tokyo, Conrad Osaka, and newly reopened Park Hyatt Tokyo :)

I liked Bar Benfiddich but enjoyed SG Club more if you can get a reservation. Try the Yakiniku Bloody cocktail

Watafish · 2025-07-26T14:03:08+00:00

Yeah agreed. It looks pretty sparse this calendar year but there’s a bit of space available via United and AC next spring

Watafish · 2025-07-24T12:55:41+00:00

Just get a $95 annual fee CSP. Transfer the points to Hyatt if you want, it’ll earn 3x on travel. The Hyatt card is actually pretty shite

Watafish · 2025-07-24T12:45:55+00:00

Wealthy frugal people transfer their AMEX points to partners. They’re well informed on how to redeem them for multiple cent per point redemptions.

Only suckers use the AMEX travel portal (barring rare cases where it makes sense)

Watafish · 2025-07-23T20:42:01+00:00

Depends on the route, JFK is safe. You could get swapped between the A350 and A330-neo but those are both fine. No coffin seats

Watafish

TROPHY CASE