Transfers from Chase Sapphire Reserve to Virgin to then book ANA

[ajs42548]

Hi everyone.
I’ve booked airline flights using points before but always just redeeming Chase Ultimate Rewards points on the Chase site. However, next year I plan on transferring my points to Virgin Atlantic and then using those points to book my flight to Tokyo. So my Chase points would go from Chase into Virgin Atlantic’s FF program and then use Virgin’s points to book Business class on ANA (A Star Alliance partner) to Tokyo. So what’s the problem you ask? Well I’m kind of paranoid. I would be transferring something like 190,000 points for 2 R/T tickets. I’m afraid that if I don’t do it right or make the slightest error, I’ll lose them. So what I’m asking is for step by step instructions from my Chase Ultimate rewards account to my Virgin Atlantic FF account and then booking my R/T from NYC to Tokyo in business class on ANA. Actually I know how to transfer my points from Chase to Virgin. It’s using those Virgin points to book on ANA that makes me nervous.
Thanks in advance,
Artie

[AL]

Hi Artie,

You can do this on virginatlantic.com – search for your route and be sure to check “Pay with Points” (or whatever it says). The VAA website lists who operates each flight – you’ll be redeeming for Virgin ticket allocation but on an ANA flight.

Chase UR points redeem 1:1 in batches of 1,000. You need to transfer 1,000 points minimum. It’s likely that this will take some time to do – it definitely does on a first AmEx transfer.

You’ll need to find the ANA reward buckets and search for availability in them. SeatSpy and similar tools can help you find them; or a friendly HfPer might look for you if you don’t have access. If you check “pay with points” on the VAA website, it will *only* search those buckets. Expert Flyer has a way to search only award buckets, too.

The “problem” here is going to be what to do it you’ve transferred from UR to VAA and then there’s no availability. You’re not entirely stuck here – you can redeem on all sorts of partners but you couldn’t transfer back to UR.

So, with that in mind, I would:

1. Make an initial transfer of 1,000 points. Doing this might – as with AmEx – make subsequent transfers faster. If not, or you don’t end up flying, “losing” 1,000 is better than 190,000!

2. When the 1,000 appear, look for availability on SeatSpy etc. for your route.

3. Confirm your route’s pricing on VirginAtlantic.com.

4. If you’re comfortable, do the transfer for the remainder of points. If not, call.

If you’re nervous about this, call VAA. Their staff are well-versed in redemptions – they’re ace to deal with. Just be sure to have the VAA and ANA flight numbers for each segment to make the process easier for them!

[Michael Scott]

You can’t see ANA availablity or book on the Virgin website but you can go to united airlines or aeroplan to search for your award flights. Once you’ve found availability then you have to call virgin to book them. I’ve just booked a return this way for Nov 22 and it’s not an easy task finding business class award seats. I’d suggest reading the threads on flyertalk for some very helpful info.

[memesweeper]

Partner redemption bookings with Virgin miles on ANA was suspended during Covid. Double check its been reactivated before transferring too!

[Michael Scott]

memesweeper wrote:

Partner redemption bookings with Virgin miles on ANA was suspended during Covid. Double check its been reactivated before transferring too!

I only booked a couple of weeks ago and I saw someone else on hfp did too so it’s definitely still an available option

[memesweeper]

Michael Scott wrote:

memesweeper wrote:

Partner redemption bookings with Virgin miles on ANA was suspended during Covid. Double check its been reactivated before transferring too!

I only booked a couple of weeks ago and I saw someone else on hfp did too so it’s definitely still an available option

Excellent news – my failed attempt was over six months ago.

[1A]

memesweeper wrote:

Partner redemption bookings with Virgin miles on ANA was suspended during Covid. Double check its been reactivated before transferring too!

Not sure this is true. I booked and modified 6 ANA bookings during 2020 and 2021. In fact it was a good time to nab tricky redemptions (got 2x F for LHR-HND-LHR, which is normally unheard of, twice!). Main issue currently is the super long call wait times