All Nippon Airways Mileage Club - F award using United miles!

Greetings, folks. All these years on FT, and I don't think I've ever posted here. Just thought I'd post that I was able to get a round trip F seat, SFO-NRT in February on ANA using 135,000 United miles. I hope that data point is useful for others trying to get an award.

From what I can see, F in ANA looks really nice. I look forward to my first ANA flight.

Greetings, folks. All these years on FT, and I don't think I've ever posted here. Just thought I'd post that I was able to get a round trip F seat, SFO-NRT in February on ANA using 135,000 United miles. I hope that data point is useful for others trying to get an award.

From what I can see, F in ANA looks really nice. I look forward to my first ANA flight.

Congrats! I've been looking for F out of JFK and no luck. :(

Congrats! I've been looking for F out of JFK and no luck. :(

You might consider booking it from IAD, ORD, SFO or LAX and working on changing it. Are you familiar with an open-jaw ticket (e.g., IAD-NRT and NRT-JFK on the return)? With an open jaw ticket, you could grab a seat to or from JFK while it's there and work on changing the other one later if a JFK seat opens up. Even if you are unable to change to JFK, you could always get a cheap coach ticket to or from any of those connecting cities.

ANA no longer offers F from IAD. :(

I flew ANA F last month from LAX, booked with UA miles. In fact I was able to switch from one ANA F flight from ORD to the LAX flight. I watched availability everyday and usually it would open up 3-5 days before departure, LAX and ORD were easiest, SFO sometimes, and and I have never seen an award seat in F to/from JFK, ever.

I flew ANA F last month from LAX, booked with UA miles. In fact I was able to switch from one ANA F flight from ORD to the LAX flight. I watched availability everyday and usually it would open up 3-5 days before departure, LAX and ORD were easiest, SFO sometimes, and and I have never seen an award seat in F to/from JFK, ever.

Well there is your extremely useful advice, fly2nrt. I say book ORD each way if you can and buy a cheap JFK-ORD RT.

Congrats! I've been looking for F out of JFK and no luck. :(

Can you fly this Saturday? I see, for the first time ever, an F seat from JFK on 8/8. There is also F from ORD on 8/10.

It looks like somebody has some catch up reading to do:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/all-nippon-airways-mileage-club/965120-downgraded-food-service-business-class.html

FYI, the thread is about both First and Business class. There are several reports of severe declines in catering in NH F. Is NH F still a good product, I have no doubt, overall it is still solid. In the past though, many of us had to actually pay hard earned cash in order to sit in NH F - then NH started to open up F awards to non-NH elites using partner miles, and not soon after, around December 2008, business class catering went downhill and recently, first class too. Understandably, Japan is experiencing a severe economic downturn. That said, cutting the catering quality on F is a sure way to lose customers and may permanently damage the brand. It's a risky strategy. I believe that's why NH F award is now available using UA miles, which was almost never granted before seeing many people reported not able to do so. Beware however, you may get what you paid for. Both catering and service, due to cut of # of personnel onboard, may be less desirable at this time. Don't go in with too much expectations is my advice.

Well there is your extremely useful advice, fly2nrt. I say book ORD each way if you can and buy a cheap JFK-ORD RT.

Why would someone need to actually buy a RT between NYC-ORD when UA flies from several airports in the NYC area to ORD, and a *A award would include connecting flights to/from the gateway?

Can you fly this Saturday? I see, for the first time ever, an F seat from JFK on 8/8. There is also F from ORD on 8/10.

Are you sure that it is available on UA and not being filtered?

Why would someone need to actually buy a RT between NYC-ORD when UA flies from several airports in the NYC area to ORD, and a *A award would include connecting flights to/from the gateway?

You're right, what kind of idiot would suggest buying the JFK-ORD segment? Oh, that was me. Thanks for correcting my oversight. Yes, of course, check for United availability on that part.

Still, if there is no UA availability on the domestic portion, I'd be willing to pay for the midcon domestic flight in order to get F long haul on ANA.

Are you sure that it is available on UA and not being filtered?

I have no idea, I'm not looking to redeem miles for an ANA F seat at the moment. I'm reporting what I see on ANA's website. When I looked for first seats last month what I saw using the ANA tool was available from United. I just tried to call for another itn, but I hung up after the estimated wait time was over 60 minutes.

I have no idea, I'm not looking to redeem miles for an ANA F seat at the moment. I'm reporting what I see on ANA's website. When I looked for first seats last month what I saw using the ANA tool was available from United. I just tried to call for another itn, but I hung up after the estimated wait time was over 60 minutes.

Maybe there was a mad rush to book that NH F seat.:D

Can you fly this Saturday? I see, for the first time ever, an F seat from JFK on 8/8. There is also F from ORD on 8/10.

That's amazing! I booked a C Award Ticket using MP miles in April for a flight that was a couple of weeks ago (26 October, SFO-NRT). Throughout the summer, I kept calling the 1K line to inquire about seats in F. Each time I got "not available" from UA. Then my outbound flight had three pax in F and my return (6 Nov) had exactly ONE passenger in F.

So is the real story that UA is releasing Starnet blocking or is ANA releasing more seats? :confused:

I booked an F award back on NH a couple of months ago using UA miles. But I did my research first by using the ANA tool. Naturally, when I called UA to book the flights they said there where no seats available. So, I politely asked them to check for some specific flights, and low and behold, I was told it was available. Moral of the story.....do your homework and guide the agent thru the process.

I'm flying NH F ORD-NRT on 2/11 booked with UA miles. There's still availability on that day, so at least 2 award seats were offered. Tried to check vayama.com to see the seat map, but apparently that feature has been removed.

Someone feel free to redeem and fly along.

Chris

So is the real story that UA is releasing Starnet blocking or is ANA releasing more seats? :confused:

I think ANA is releasing slightly more seats.

I'm flying NH F ORD-NRT on 2/11 booked with UA miles. There's still availability on that day, so at least 2 award seats were offered. Tried to check vayama.com to see the seat map, but apparently that feature has been removed.

Someone feel free to redeem and fly along.

Chris

Wow, its wide open! BTW I checked right after the new seats announcement and found award seats in biz on 2/24 and first(!) on 3/8. Those are gone now, but there are still seats in both first and biz on JFK-NRT-JFK when the old config is flying, from 2/24-3/31.