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ANA’s new business class seat, THE Room, really is very good ….

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Back in July we wrote about ANA’s new Business Class and First Class products, which are debuting on the Heathrow to Tokyo route.

This is worth knowing about because one of the best uses of Virgin Flying Club miles is redeeming on ANA flights from London.  You only need 95,000 miles for a return business class flight.

Using your Virgin Flying Club miles for a trip to Tokyo has just got a whole lot more interesting.  ANA is launching a new Business and First Class seat on its Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, and the London route has been the first to get it.  It looks rather good, to put it mildly.

The First Class suites are arranged in a 1-2-1 configuration.  Finished in dark woods, there are two only rows which make this an intimate cabin:

ANA first class the suite

The seat almost takes the full width of the suite, with only a thin slither along the side given over to storage or as an armrest. There is also an exceptionally large 43” screen which has a 4K display – apparently the first time this has been used for a commercial aircraft.

THE Room is ANA’s new Businesss Class product.  Club World style, half of the seats face forwards and half face backwards.

If you look at the photo below the first thing that will strike you is how disproportionately wide the seat is.  Look at the head rest.  You can see the protective cover, which is about what you’d expect the seat width to be.

THE Room looks like it is twice as wide – more sofa-like than a seat. ANA says that THE Room has twice the width of their old business class seat (click for Anika’s flight review) which is not hard to believe.

ANA business class the room

Of course, this is business class and the trade-off is that it does taper into a cubby hole where your feet end up.  Nonetheless, the extra width at torso and shoulder height should make sitting and sleeping in this seat feel a lot less cramped.  It is a very clever piece of design.

Last week I attended the media launch of THE Room, and there were seats available to try out.  It is, genuinely, huge.  At one point there were two of us sat side by side on the seat and we were able to have a normal conversation, with a decent bit of space between us!

Not content with a sliding door, THE Room also has a second opening which slides up and down.  This allows the crew to pass food to you whilst the door is closed, getting around one of the biggest issues with Club Suite and Qsuite.  The 24 inch 4K TV also looked very impressive, although it was not operating.

ANA business class the room

If you need to head to Japan in the near future, I strongly recommend giving this a try.  It is currently on both of ANA’s daily Heathrow services.

You won’t earn Avios or BA tier points as ANA is a member of Star Alliance, although you can credit the flight to Virgin Flying Club.

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How to earn Star Alliance miles from UK credit cards

How to earn Star Alliance miles from UK credit cards (April 2025)

None of the Star Alliance airlines currently have a UK credit card.

There is, however, still a way to earn Star Alliance miles from a UK credit card. 

The route is via Marriott Bonvoy. Marriott Bonvoy hotel loyalty points convert to over 40 airlines at the rate of 3:1.

The best way to earn Marriott Bonvoy points is via the official Marriott Bonvoy American Express card. It comes with 20,000 points for signing up and 2 points for every £1 you spend. At 2 Bonvoy points per £1, you are earning (at 3:1) 0.66 airline miles per £1 spent on the card.

There is a preferential conversion rate to United Airlines – which is a Star Alliance member – of 2 : 1 if you convert 60,000 Bonvoy points at once.

The Star Alliance members which are Marriott Bonvoy transfer partners are: Aegean, Air Canada, Air China, Air New Zealand, ANA, Asiana Airlines, Avianca, Copa Airlines, Singapore Airlines, TAP Air Portugal, Thai Airways, Turkish Airlines and United Airlines.

You can apply here.

Marriott Bonvoy American Express

20,000 points for signing up and 15 elite night credits each year Read our full review

Category

General

Comments (167)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Nick says:
    19 Sep19 September 12:23

    Revolut and Curve

    Are there maximum spend limits when using the cards abroad? (not referring to ATMs)- purely card use in shops, restaurants etc outside the UK?

    What if such limits are exceeded?

    • Peter K says:
      19 Sep19 September 12:39

      Curve has daily and monthly limits but they are usually large (mine are £3750 daily, £20,000 monthly).

    • Mr. AC says:
      19 Sep19 September 13:58

      For Curve the limits are the same as domestic spending, but the free FX is only up to 500 GBP per month rolling. Revolut is up to 5000, but there is a fee all the time if it’s a currency they consider ‘illiquid’ (e.g. UAH or THb).

  • NICK says:
    19 Sep19 September 12:25

    Can I use my Curve Card (with Lloyds mastercard behind it) to part pay my Virgin Premium Credit Card?

    If not per the T&C’s – will it simply be blocked or can a fee be imposed?

  • Guy says:
    19 Sep19 September 12:38

    Sorry for the OT:

    If someone would be as kind to help with the below that would be much appreciated!

    1. My partner has the Amex Platinum ca$h & back card, would she still be eligible for any bonus with the Amex Membership reward cards i.e. Platinum/Gold Rewards? I thought I read somewhere that its only cards that have the reward scheme that need caution.

    2. Luckily I’ve got past my 24 month window and will get a Platinum card shortly, could I just double check that I am still ok to apply for the BA Amex Prem after without any problems? HFP says this “The BA Premium Plus sign-up bonus is only available to customers who have not held a British Airways or British Airways Premium Plus American Express card in the previous 24 months”. I recall at the time of the changes there was some confusion about if the eligibility across card types

    3. Does anyone know the supplementary charge per card for Amex Platinum?

    Thanks for the advice!

    • Peter K says:
      19 Sep19 September 12:47

      1. The card she has stops her getting any bonus on any personal amex except:
      a) platinum if she had not had a membership rewards card of any sort for 24 or more months
      b) BA premium plus if she had not had an amex issued BA card of any sort for 24 or more months

      2. See 1b above

      3. The first platinum supplementary is free. Thereafter you can get some gold supplementaries for free.

    • pauldb says:
      19 Sep19 September 13:28

      If you want a second supp Plat it will be £285 pa.

  • Chuck says:
    19 Sep19 September 13:03

    ‘it should surely not just be met with a shrug of the shoulders’ … no but you were in France where that is the default reaction…

  • Jack says:
    19 Sep19 September 13:04

    OT:

    Very conflicted about what to do.

    Do people on here generally go for:

    Spunking Avios on something you know to be poor value per point, but that gives you something you want for a specific trip you have planned.

    or

    Paying cash for stuff when an Avios redemption would be bad value and keeping your Avios for ‘some other time’ with nothing specific in mind.

    I suppose I would consider myself to be Avios Rich – Cash Poor, but something still bothers me about using the points for bad value redemptions especially as (thanks to Amex) they are now so much harder to amass.

    • Doug M says:
      19 Sep19 September 13:11

      Much of the answer would depend on the precise values involved. Were the Avios acquired at a cost, or from flying someone else paid for. In terms of Avios at a cost, even credit card Avios are not free, because you could have used a cash-back credit card, so there’s an underlying cost.

      • Freddy says:
        19 Sep19 September 17:41

        If the points were from credit card spend I would compare the cost to the leading pure c@shbk card of around 1%. If less than 1% I’d hold off using the points

        Though it may be a wake up call that you don’t have the best card for your needs. Avios may be great at peak times but if you are flexible with dates you are better with cash alot of the time.

    • The Savage Squirrel says:
      19 Sep19 September 20:01

      Don’t get too obsessed by nominal cash ratio comparisons for flights you would never even have considered if your Avios balance was zero; the best use of Avios is always for a flight that you would have been prepared to pay cash to be on anyway.

    • Kathy says:
      20 Sep20 September 12:03

      The best use of Avios is always for something that you couldn’t countenance paying cash for. So if you’re cash poor, use the Avios – even if it’s a low ppa value – because the win is that you’re getting to do something you wouldn’t be able to otherwise.

      You can’t use Avios to pay rent, or your mortgage, or utilities. when cash poor, always save the cash for your necessities and use Avios for the luxuries.

  • Gringo says:
    19 Sep19 September 13:28

    Data point:
    I used Addison Lee with my Platinum card on 8th September. Moved from “Pending” to “Processed” on 12th. £10 refund hit my account on 13th.
    I’ve found this only to be worthwhile for short trips though. AL charged me £14.65 for a trip that Uber was charging £6-9. Worth it on AL when considering the £10 credit as a once-a-month, but crazy to use otherwise.

  • Spaghetti Town says:
    19 Sep19 September 13:34

    OT: what does everyone use to track their wealth? I have Bitcoin, S&S ISA, savings, premium bonds, help 2 buy ISA etc and would like to keep a better track instead of checking each account now and again.

    • Russ says:
      19 Sep19 September 14:09

      Wife.

    • Genghis says:
      19 Sep19 September 14:15

      Some people like Money Dashboard but for some reason having everything all in one place doesn’t sit well with me. I’m “old school” with a self-built spreadsheet and update the numbers manually, though there’s automated functionality for fund rebalancing, tracking etc (with share prices and ETF prices automatically pulled).

      • Harry T says:
        19 Sep19 September 14:43

        I’m curious about what funds/platforms you’re using for investing. The LifeStrategy funds with Vanguard look appealing.

        • Genghis says:
          19 Sep19 September 15:38

          For ISAs I slice and dice with Vanguard as I like the platform, all in fee comes out at c.0.32%. I could do it a little cheaper with another fixed fee platform with global ETFs (say VWRL at 0.25% + trading fees + broker charge; or something like the new SWLD at 0.12% say at 85% weight and EMIM at 0.18% at say 15% weight) but I like where I am currently.

          The LifeStrategy funds are simple but more expensive and overweight the UK a bit too much.

          • Harry T says:
            19 Sep19 September 17:58

            Thanks. So you’re using Vanguard’s platform to construct a portfolio of ETFs/index funds, but not using the LifeStrategy ones for the reasons outlined above? May I ask what your Vanguard portfolio is made up of?

          • Genghis says:
            19 Sep19 September 21:23

            It’s a slice and dice make up essentially of VWRL + a slight overweight UK in percentages I review annually + overweight FTSE250 and global small caps.

      • Spaghetti Town says:
        19 Sep19 September 15:25

        On second thoughts – i might actually go old school with a spreadsheet.

        • xcalx says:
          19 Sep19 September 16:08

          I must be very old school, I have no idea how to set up a spreadsheet. It’s time I moved up to the nineties.

          • Lyn says:
            19 Sep19 September 19:29

            You may be right. Spreadsheets are very useful tools, even if you only use them in their simplest form as tables to keep of track of miles and points.

            On the other hand, we don’t normally use mobile phones, so we’re probably years behind you.

        • Axel says:
          19 Sep19 September 18:24

          Cheaper than a wife

  • DavidB says:
    19 Sep19 September 13:47

    About the Hilton LXR Biltmore. IIRC back in the 80s this used to be the InterContinental Britannia, our go-to property when visiting London in those years. Might be worth a return stay when next in London for old time’s sake.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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