Originally Posted by Mplitchfield

ANA business and first class is notoriously very difficult to obtain via paying with points. I would 100% scout out your flights beforehand and do some “practice” runs to see if it is even feasible.

ANA agents will not hold your flight. You need to transfer the points first, which can take up to 5 business days. Thats a huge risk obviously. But being more flexible with your dates will help.

I spent *months* trying to get 1 F and 1 Business class flight to Haneda from JFK using every single trick in the book and could not land it. I was able to get Chicago to NRT RT, but even that was difficult.