Most likely March and April. I hear that's the best time to go so I was wondering if I could get some advice from people who have been there before. I would be going with my gf and our budget would be around $5000-$7000 each (is that a reasonable amount?) but we still have to plan everything out. We would get this JR pass as well to do a lot of traveling around Japan. The main concern is a place to stay and food. For places to stay we are thinking about renting an apartment for one month and taking it easy. Then when we do a lot of sight seeing we thought about Airbnb. This is just the very first steps in planning this so if anyone can share their experience it would be really helpful.

Whenever I was in Osaka I stayed at business hotels. $30/night, and this particular one offered a double as well for probably a bit more. Lacking in features but saves lots of money. I highly recommend business hotels wherever possible.

Also about flight tickets. I checked the prices yesterday and they were about $725 and today they're about $988. Do you think it will keep going up or can it possibly go down?

I've only flown a handful of times but I would say the earlier you can get tickets the better. And also use incognito mode on your browser. I'm by no means an expert here so I'll leave that to someone else.

learningkanji Wrote:Also about flight tickets. I checked the prices yesterday and they were about $725 and today they're about $988. Do you think it will keep going up or can it possibly go down?

I've seen a few guidelines for getting good prices on reddit written by former or current ticket sales agents. Here's an AMA by a guy who says he's been interested in ticket prices since he was a kid with some good sounding advice. It seems buying tickets too early or too late increases the price considerably. I believe 1-2 months in advance was the sweet spot.

And TheVinster is right, I've seen prices go up after I've browsed them the previous day. Coincidence??

yogert909 Wrote:

learningkanji Wrote:Also about flight tickets. I checked the prices yesterday and they were about $725 and today they're about $988. Do you think it will keep going up or can it possibly go down?

I've seen a few guidelines for getting good prices on reddit written by former or current ticket sales agents. Here's an AMA by a guy who says he's been interested in ticket prices since he was a kid with some good sounding advice. It seems buying tickets too early or too late increases the price considerably. I believe 1-2 months in advance was the sweet spot.

And TheVinster is right, I've seen prices go up after I've browsed them the previous day. Coincidence??

I've actually heard that some airline ticket sites use your cookies against you.