I flew United first class from Japan for next to nothing

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During our honeymoon last fall, my wife and I flew in United's Polaris first class from Tokyo to Honolulu.
From private, customized service, to delicious food, to a luxurious bed, the red-eye flight was incredibly relaxing and enjoyable.
We only paid $38.96 each for the flights, and used 62,500 points from our Chase Sapphire Preferred cards, and a few other cards, for the rest.

Flying long-haul is rough. Of course, that's if you're in economy. If you're lucky enough to sit in business or first class, it's an entirely different story.

The problem is that premium cabins are extremely expensive on international flights. For most of us, the only way to fly in front is if it's a work trip and your office is paying — a perk often reserved for the highest-level executives. Alternatively, if you're constantly on the road for work, you might have elite status with a frequent flyer program, in which case you might be able to get certificates for free upgrades. Even if you can't get those elite upgrades but you do fly often, you might be able to save up enough miles.

Fortunately for the rest of us, there's another way to fly in first class, and it's virtually free — use your credit card points.

You can book through your credit card's travel website, although this usually takes a huge amount of points. A better option is to transfer your points to an airline's frequent flyer program, basically turning them into miles. Because of the way that frequent flyer programs work, you can usually get a lot more value from a lot fewer miles than credit card points.

As an example, I searched for flights on United Airlines and found business class tickets between Chicago and Munich starting at $4,600. If I use credit card points, worth one cent each, to buy the ticket, I would need 460,000 points. If, for example, those points are from a Chase Sapphire Preferred card, meaning I'd get a 25% bonus for booking travel through Chase, I'd still need 368,000 points.

However, United's frequent flyer award chart shows that each way in business class between the US and Europe only costs 60,000 miles at the saver level — or 120,000 for a round-trip, and you're able to transfer points from the Sapphire Preferred to United. If I make that transfer, which converts my points into United miles at a 1:1 ratio, I can effectively get a business class ticket for just one-quarter of the points.

Last fall, my wife and I used this technique to fly in first class during our honeymoon. On this particular leg, we flew overnight from Tokyo to Honolulu with United on an overnight flight.

It was surprisingly easy to get the points we needed to book the tickets.

Something great about Chase is that you can combine the points from all of your Chase cards, and you can also pool points with people in the same household.

We each opened a Chase Sapphire Preferred card — earning a 50,000 point sign-up bonus after spending $4,000 within the first four months (this was before the similar Sapphire Reserve card was available). I opened mine first, and earned a few bonus points for referring her and a couple of friends to open their own cards, too. I also opened an earlier version of the Chase Freedom Unlimited card to buy the engagement ring, and earned 15,000 bonus points for spending $500 within the first three months.

Between those sign-up bonuses, our normal spending, and a few reimbursable travel expenses for work trips — plus a handful of United frequent flyer miles we already had — we had enough miles for the United flights. We even saw our credit scores increase, since the new accounts added to our credit history.

Each ticket was 62,500 United MileagePlus miles. Since United is a transfer partner of Chase, we transferred the points we needed to supplement our modest stock of United miles. I spent about two weeks searching for flights every few days until a few first class seats appeared at the saver price — standard would have cost more miles. We booked about nine months out.

The cards we opened still have the same sign-up bonuses. If you wanted to fly in a premium cabin with United or any of a few different airlines, you could get nearly enough points simply by opening a new card or two and earning the signups. Of course, before you do that, you should make sure to read up on how opening a new credit card will affect your credit score and profile.

While the flight was on an older United plane, which didn't have the latest cutting-edge Polaris cabin and seats, it was extremely comfortable and enjoyable. Take a look below to see what our flight was like, and check out the links to learn more about the credit cards I used to get enough points for the trip.