I looked at the status of the two flights the last 3 weeks. One day I would have missed the connection and 3 other days it would have been questionable. I know United would get me home all being on the same reservation

So I had a whiskey and a cigar and it came to me if I changed my outbound flight to Osaka instead of Tokyo and swapped the Tokyo and Osaka portions of the trip so I was in Tokyo before heading home, I could eliminate the ANA flight

So Denver thru SFO to Osaka
21 days in Japan
Tokyo to Denver Direct

It was Award tickets so I had to swap Polaris to Tokyo for Premium Plus to Osaka. I think its worth it, but have quite a while to see if the Polaris seats go on sale. Things change daily.

Polaris seats at 100K miles each was why we decided to fly into Tokyo

Flying all United, I don't have to understand another airlines Carry on policy. ANA didnt seem to bad compared to others like Virgin Australia

I always like to complete the story when I start a Forum thread