Buying airline tickets in Japan

Hi, I am heading to Japan at the beginning of November for a gap year, and I have a job at a ski resort lasting until the beginning of April. I do not know how much longer I will want to stay in Japan following this, and I also do not know whether I will return home to England straight away or go on to the United States, another country I am hoping to visit during this year. Are there any problems with buying my return/onward ticket whilst out in Japan (huge price difference, passport difficulty, etc?) I need to decide whether to buy all the tickets now, or simply buy an outward one and see what happens.
Thank you very much for your time.

I see other 'problems':
a) For your 6 months of working in Japan you will enter Japan with a working visa. When this expires you must leave the country. You cannot continue as a 'temporary visitor'.
b) You can enter as 'temporary visitor' as UK citizen for example for three months, then extend to further 3 months. But you cannot work during this time.
c) Expect a single air ticket to be more expensive than a half return ticket. Especially when you use a cheap discounted return ticket. In general a single ticket is 50 % of the official IATA tariff and so much more expensive than a discounted return ticket.

Reading the original post, I'd assumed that he probably has a working holiday visa (being from UK); so if he has it for one year he should be able to stay beyond the initial six months.

If you haven't decided which way you want to travel, apparently you cannot purchase all air tickets in advance... in terms of immigration requirements, if you can show (if asked at immigration upon entry into Japan) that you have funds to purchase return (or extra travel) air ticket, that should be OK. For air ticket prices, I've seen some discount air ticket companies' names mentioned here on other threads as well.

Applying now for a working holiday visa for entry Japan early November might be difficult. The Japanese Embassy in London issues 400 visas starting March 2007 and I am not sure if there are still vacant places. Although it is slightly different for each country in UK they ask for either return or onward ticket plus GBP 1500 or cleared funds of GBP 2500 without ticket. So this decision was already made before applying for the working holiday visa.
So may I ask Rob-imashita to check his immigration situation to Japan first. Japan does not allow people to come in and work, not even for a short period, without a proper visa issued before entering the country.

I've already got a Working Holiday Visa, sorry to be unclear about that, so immigration is not the problem. It's just I haven't decided how long I will want to spend in Japan once my job has finished, I am thinking a month or so, but may find it's not enough/too long, and I have also not decided whether to return straight home or go on to America. I have been researching airline tickets using British Airways, and have found that a return ticket is exactly double a one way- there is not much money lost in this case. Not knowing how much more travelling I'm going to feel like doing after five months(this is my first time away from home)I would like to be able to take things as they come. If there are definitive problems with that, though, I would be very grateful for advice.

I have purchased airline tickets while in Japan (I'm a visitor from the USA) My wife and I just used Expedia or other online booking and received e-tickets or had documents express mailed to our hotel. It is definitely not a problem to reserve a flight for wherever you need to go.

Thanks for the advice, it is reassuring to know that it is no problem to purchase tickets. Also, though, if I was coming on a Working Holiday Visa (with some Japanese speaking skills but not fluent) would the customs at the airport be prepared to listen to why I have no return/onward ticket? I mean, I can provide proof that I have the necessary means to purchase another ticket, but I am slightly worried that there would be more to it than that: ie. "are you planning on overstaying your visa?" etc. I can just imagine how strange it would sound to say "I don't know how long I want to stay or where I want to go (USA or England).

For your 6 months of working in Japan you will enter Japan with a working visa. When this expires you must leave the country. You cannot continue as a 'temporary visitor'.

Please note that it is possible to change from a working visa to "temporary visitor" after the working visa expires. You have to apply for a "change of status of residence" at an immigration office inside Japan.

This travel agency has some pretty good deals from Japan to the US.

http://www.hittravel.co.jp/index.php?lang=ENG

To get back to the UK from the US, try this one:

http://flweb5.ypsilon.net/index.phtml/airconsoama09?lbNodeId...

or this one:

http://www.airfarestore.com/cheap_airfare.html