O.K. here we go.

Please note first of all that I met two regular United fliers on the plane who took ANA (for the first time)because it was $1,600 cheapper than United. Market forces here?

I thought that ANA service would be like JAL. I expected very good service. I was wrong.

O.K. most planes are the same. it comes down to two things..seates and flight attendants (maybe food for some).

Compared to United the seates were terrible. My neighbor said "it was not business class instead it was a kind of economy plus (but it was Business). United seates are leather ANA's cloth and a bit hard.
United's seats stretch out to a more comfortable possition and I am short.

They forgot to stock magazines in business class so I had to go back to economy for reading material. The snack selection was more comprehensive in Economy than Business class.

When I got on the plane I simply requested a beer. I had been waiting for over three hours to board because ANA did not inform me of the scheduled depature time change ahead of time(this was on the return leg, I had purchased my ticket 330 days before and the scheduled flight time had been changed/normal). On United, by checking my itineraries.com I can be made aware of any changes on my United flights. In fact I was made aware of changes for the domestic portion of my ticket on both the United web site and the United counter for proceeding flights.

Anyway, I simply asked for a pre departure beer. The stewardess informed me that I could not have one because regulations prohibit pre departure drinks for international flights (by the way, she was a fluent English speaker). I told her that I had had pre departure drinks many times before on other airlines. I am realy not much of a drinker. She preceeded to tell me that I was wrong....Rule number one in customer service. NEVER tell the customer that he/she is wrong. This was a sighn of poor customer service training. I hate when people make up rules. Lets just say that she was in my face with this for about five minutes. I realy didn't need a drink that bad.

Finaly after we took off, I waited for ten plus minutes (after she went into the drink/food prep area)without receiving a drink. I then called the purser and calmly explained that "I had been waiting over ten minutes for a drink and this was going to be a ten hour flight and I would like to know if I was going to receive bad service for ten hours (basicly the flight attendant had an attutude and I didn't want to suffer for it the entire flight) the purser said "yes" (I was going to recieve bad service) this was not her intention it was just her poor English ability. She did however do the right thing, she changed the position of the flight attendant.

While I was sleeping (with my glasses at my side) the witch..I mean the origional flight atendant came over, woke me up and asked if I was going to write a complaint letter. I told her to go away. She wouldn't go away and she asked me again if I was going to write a complaint letter. My responce was "would you like me to write one because you wouldn't get me a drink or for waking me from a sound sleep?".C: She then left.

Durring the flight a child was screaming for six hours while the parents did little to quiete it. I asked them to please keep their child quite and noted that about 20 people were trying to sleep.

At the end of the flight the witch visited me again and said that I was a rude person for telling her that she was wrong about the drink regulations and that I was rude to the passenger for asking him to attempt to keep his child quite. She also said that she did not want me to fly ANA again and that she would write a complaint letter about me.

Oh, one more point. As we taxied to the gate about 10 passangers stood up and got things out of the overhead baggage bin. The witch did nothing to stop them. In fact non of the flight attndants did anything to stop any one.
I have seen United flight attendents regularly stop people from getting up in a moving plan. Japanese are famous for this. It is realy dangerous because of the occasional sharp stops that we sometimes experience going to and from the gate.

One last point the New York flight have two plane types, one old and one new.

Sorry,I forgot, ANA says they have a customized meal service at any time for their New York Route. What I got is regular airline service (everyone gets served at the same time, which is fine with me)and the customized portion is "beef,chicken or Japanese?". I don't get it.

I managed to change my December flight to United today.

Sorry about the long story, but you asked for it.