How to Book a First Class Roundtrip Flight to JAPAN with ANA
It’s finally complete. The flights are booked and confirmed, ready to go this fall. So how did we book two first-class tickets to Japan on All Nippon Airways (ANA)? In this post, we’ll discuss the preparation work as well as the steps to get your YOLO trip to Japan.
Disclaimer: It’s a lot of work, which includes a ton of planning (the points process + booking needs to be about 18 months in advance for most people), and picking the right time to travel, with a dash of luck. You also have to have an open travel vacation time as the award seat availability is at the discretion of the airline. There are multiple methods of generating points to transfer to the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles, but to mirror my exact experience, we will stick with American Express Membership Rewards points, flying from LAX to HND/NRT.
So up front, you will need to prepare by signing up for a Star Alliance partner website (preferably United Airlines), a Virgin Atlantic Flying Club account, ANA Mileage Club account, and you will need to link your American Express Membership account with Virgin Atlantic Flying Club account. This may seem like a lot of work, but you’ll need these to ensure that you can search for award seats for Star Alliance airline partners.
United’s website has a robust search engine to be able to spot your award seating
Accrual of American Express Membership Points
Before you begin, take a look at the American Express Platinum and Gold cards article as well as the American Express Trifecta article to maximize your points earnings. For this particular method, you will need to accrue at least 85,000 MR points per person, up to two people, to transfer to Virgin Atlantic. The required points vary depending on the season you plan on flying but to keep it simple, we’ll use the rates for an October to early November departure. Keep in mind that only two award seats are available for first class, as there are only 8 first class seats on each flight (777-300ER). There may be more seats released but only about a couple of weeks prior to the departure of the flight.
Bonus Transfers
The bonus transfers are a key element of keeping the required MR points low. Normally, a first class flight from the US West Coast to Tokyo will cost 110,000 Virgin Atlantic Flying Club (VS) miles per person, but a couple times a year, American Express will have bonus transfer partners which includes a 30% transfer bonus to VS miles. Since January of 2019, there have been 3 times where a bonus transfer to VS miles were active with a 30% bonus, so be patient if you don’t see it right away. Also, your miles are good for 2 years, BUT I would still wait to transfer the points as it is pretty much instant - and even if bonuses aren’t available, a round trip ticket for 110k miles is still saving you from paying up to 165k miles with ANA directly.
Keep in mind where you are traveling from, as the points requirement will vary.
Booking Rules
Now here’s the interesting part: the booking rules, and why it is so difficult to get the seats.
ANA releases their award seats approximately 355 days in advance and requires that all award bookings be a round trip ticket. This is especially difficult because Virgin Atlantic only allows bookings 331 days in advance, which means that the bookings have to be open for 4 weeks prior to being available. Fear not though, eventually there will be award seats available.
Booking Steps
So now you have some MR points to transfer, the bonus transfer is up, and it’s time to make your booking - so what are the actual steps?
Check the partner website for availability - When you log into United.com’s website, be sure to hit “Advanced search” under the “book” tab, this will allow you to pick the correct partners when searching.
Advanced search screenshot
Under the Advanced search, select the following:
1. Do you want to book a MileagePlus award ticket? - Yes
2. Trip Type - Roundtrip (as ANA only allows roundtrip bookings)
3. My dates are flexible - Check (so that you can see the calendar)
4. My search preferences - Expand to select “All Star Alliance airlines”
United award availability calendar
The United award calendar is crucial as it will show the days that are available with award seats. Not all “Saver Award premium cabin” mean that there is a first class seat for Star Alliance partners. These could mean that there are business class seats, first class seats, as well as United’s own seating, so you will need to check each days individually.
United award available seats
If the award seating is available, you will see that it costs 110k United Mileage Club miles for a one-way booking. Don’t worry though, this is only if you’re actually making the booking through United’s mileage program, which you are not - plus this goes to show you how awesome of a deal is, being able to make a round trip flight through Virgin Atlantic for 110k miles.
At the point, be sure to grab the flight details as you will need this when making the booking with the Virgin Atlantic’s representative over the phone. Yes, you do have to call them over the phone the “old school” method. Do the same steps above for the return flight and now you have the details.
Call the USA number at 800.365.9500
Give Virgin Atlantic Flying Club a call and state that you wish to make a booking on an ANA flight. They will ask you for the flight details as well as the class and the dates you wish to travel. Once it is confirmed, you can ask to hold the reservation for 48 hours - but you really won’t need anything more than 10 minutes as the transfer from American Express Membership Rewards to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points transfer takes literally seconds (from my personal experience).
Transfer your American Express Membership Rewards points
When you log into your American Express account, click “Rewards” and it will take to the above screenshot. Within that menu, hit “Transfer Points” and you will be given a list of the partners that are eligible to transfer your Amex MR points to - of which one is Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles.
Once you’ve confirmed that the miles have been transferred, give Virgin Atlantic a call back and reference the reservation number provided by the representative. From here on, they should confirm the payment of your award tickets using the miles, payment of fees (around $260 USD - yes the fees are a little higher compared to others, but getting a $20,000+ ticket for $260 is a great deal that you shouldn’t pass up on), and will provide you an email with the confirmation number as well as the e-ticket numbers. Keep this e-ticket number handy so you that you can check your reservation and pick your seats on ANA’s website.
Images courtesy of fly-ana.com
Conclusion
Now that you have a first class ticket to Japan, what will you do on this trip? Comment down below or feel free to contact us for any details and questions. Happy ticket hunting!
