Virgin (LHR) – Japan next year

[Primesteak]

Hi all,

Hope you can help. Trying to book next year using points a return trip to Japan in April/May, ideally through ANA.

I called up Virgin and they said there are no flights and they don’t do that route and I would need to check through United (and fly to the US to take advantage).

This doesn’t seem right to me or have I missed the boat with upcoming changes with SkyTeam etc.

Any help much appreciated and for what it’s worth this would be just for an economy return.

[AL]

I think the agent you spoke to might be a little bit confused. A crash course in ANA redemptions follows.

VS operates a zone-based redemption chart for ANA, which you can find at https://flywith.virginatlantic.com/gb/en/flying-club/airline-partners/all-nippon-airways/all-nippon-airways-spend-points.html. The mileage requirement quoted is for a return trip – if you want a one-way, then you’d divide the mileage requirement by two.

Search for availability for the flights you want on a Star Alliance member’s website – personally, I always use united.com, but any of them will work. You need to specifically search for flights that are available using miles (or whatever the airline’s website calls that – e.g. on AirCanada.com, that would be ‘Book using Aeroplan’). Flying Club have access to the same reward itinerary as the Star Alliance carriers do, so if you can see a flight on United.com, then Flying Club should be able to see it, too.

Jot down the details of the flights you want (make an agent’s day and jot down the dates, times, ANA flight numbers and bucket codes, if visible). If you do jot the bucket codes down, you should find that your return economy flights have code S, W, V, Q, H, U, M, B or Y. A good thing about the Flying Club approach to rewards is that you can mix and match fare buckets. You’d usually do this across cabins (for example, Economy out, Premium back), but you can also do it within cabins (e.g. Economy Y out and Economy Q in).

Call Flying Club. Choose the options to make a new reservation. Provide the agent with the details of the flights you want and any other details they need. They’ll check for reward availability (to double check your homework) and, if successful, they’ll give you a confirmation number.

The confirmation number is the reference that ANA provide to Flying Club when they make a reward request. The agent will tell you to call back in a few hours to find out the status of the request. Assuming your homework worked out, and nobody got the reward seat before you managed to, when you call back and give the confirmation number, you’ll be told that your reward itinerary is pending. Flying Club can hold a seat for you for 48 hours before ANA force the release of the seat back to inventory. The pending state means that the seat is held, but you need to then pay the carrier-imposed surcharges, which mostly comprises fuel surcharges. If you want an idea of what these are before you decide to call Flying Club, you can look them up on ITA Matrix (https://matrix.itasoftware.com/search). Carrier imposed surcharges are the same on reward inventory as they are on revenue inventory. When you’re using ITA Matrix, choose the result that is sold only by ANA (e.g. you don’t want ‘ANA, SWISS’ or ‘ANA, Air Canada’ results) to get the most accurate view of carrier-imposed surcharges. I believe that there is meant to be some broad agreement about surcharges within the same alliance, so that each carrier doesn’t rip each other off, but I’m not too sure on that point. Remember, too, that carrier-imposed surcharges includes carrier-imposed surcharge (YQ) and all other fees (e.g. Switzerland Noise Charge, UK APD, Japanese tourism tax, McDonald’s Go Large for 99p, £5 off your next Naked Wines order when you spent £15,000 in Lidl etc.).

Assuming you’re happy with the surcharges, the agent will take payment for those, confirm the itinerary with ANA (which can take a few hours, because they have to go back to ANA separately), and then send an itinerary by email (or, sometimes, given the PNR which you can just plumb in to ana.co.jp) and then you’re on your way to the land of cherry blossom, tonkotsu and other brilliance. Don’t worry about the delay after paying surcharges – as long as VS get a reply from ANA within 48 hours, which they will do, then your seats are safe and sound.

Shout if you’ve any questions 🙂

[Primesteak]

Thank you so much for your detailed reply. I shall take another look and be armed and ready.

I did try looking through United for reward flights and could not find a ANA flight back to LHR despite looking at many dates. Maybe this is where the issue was but I shall try again.

Thanks again.