Using PlusPoints on NH / ANA
 

Apology if this was discussed beforehand as I could not find the right answer.

I was wondering how to change LH codeshared flight number to original NH flight number to apply the PP for upgrade. I understand if the flight is UA code-shared, one could call the UA to change the flight number to original carrier's flight number (back to either NH or LH flight number).
Can you do the same for the LH? If I book a flight on LH and if the segment (e.g.; HND-FRA) is booked with LH code-shared flight number, can I call LH to change it back to the original NH flight number so that I could apply PP?

Since this is fundamentally a question about LH's ability to make modifications to an LH-issued ticket, you're probably best off asking in the LH forum.

No, you can't do that with LH the same way you can with UA. Best is to find a TA who can issue the ticket with a native NH flight number.

Thank you for the answer. So it is much more complicated process than UA,than,

Probably better said is once issued you will unlikely be able to get it changed, so you need get the original ticket correctly issued. But no post-issued changes likely.

Thank you for your help.

Actually, instead of getting LH flights from US to Japan and risk being stranded in Europe due to recent Ukrainian crisis, I wounded up booking code shared NH flight from UA and get an upgrade on NH flight. The process of converting the UA code shared flight number to NH nativel number was quite long.. First 1K agent took about an hour and did it for me but apparently since I jumped the gun in ordering NH upgrade right after getting the ticket receipt, the ticket was not reissued properly. I did not realize this until I could not get upgrade on my return UA native flight on the UA website and I called 1K agent for help. Another nice 1K agent was very patient and she fixed the the issue but it too more than 90 minutes to solve that (I felt really sorry for her for that) and get ticket reissued.

I received my ticket recipe with all the upgrade properly registered but I noticed that the mileage accrual and plus point accrual as "0" for the upgraded NH flight. Does this mean that I need to reconcile the discrepancy after I take the flight through UA website?

Likely a common problem that generally will clearup eventually but even if it does not, it almost always posts correctly
Incorrect / Ineligible projected earning information showing on my itinerary

Can PlusPoints be used to upgrade an NH segment from Premium Economy (R fare) to Business like it can on UA metal? I have not seen this in any FAQ

I have been having problem getting the UA upgrade site to accept my NH booking.

I have confirmed with NH my B fare booking is in its system, but UA website site keeps saying record is not found.

Two issues here:

1) If your segment is booked in R, then you are on a UA codeshare. You'd first need to get UA to switch you over to the NH prime flight number.
2) R is the lowest PE fare class, and it maps over to NH N class, which is not eligible for Plus Points upgrades. You'd need to upfare to G or E class.

Is this easy to do? Does it only simply require a call to UA to make the change?

thanks - I saw language to that effect just now on the website

I couldn’t find this level of detail on United.com, or anything about UG from PE to J on ANA using PPs

So I guess G=A and E=O? And is it 30 points like with UA metal longhaul? My example is NRT-SIN

Much of *A use G/E/N for PremEcom while UA using O/A/R
G==O
E==A
N==R

For partners it is 40 PlusPoints for upgrades to business, regardless if purchased ticket is economy or premium economy. UA on its metal provides a discount if in PremPlus

B should be easy. If it has an NH flight #. You need to use the NH PNR and not the UA PNR. Should work.

Thanks for crowd sourcing the answers for me :tu:

I felt guilty booking SFO-NRT-SIN with SFO-NRT on UA metal (I wanted to try NH if I could UG to J) but looks like with my cheap R fare I could only use PlusPoints on UA metal.

Now if the UG doesn’t clear I’ll be slightly P’d in PP….

Does anyone know whether this was just an error with 1KHI's reservation, or if the waitlist does not really "transfer" to the airport upgrade list? When I used PP on LH, the agents at an outstation could see that I was on the upgrade list, but couldn't tell me my place in line. I checked my reservation every five minutes and eventually gave up as boarding commenced. But when I scanned my boarding pass, the gate agent handed me a new boarding pass for J. So, at least for LH, I know it's possible to be upgraded at the very last minute. But what about NH? Do they really do that? Or, are you out of luck if it doesn't clear T-24?

One thing I discovered today while trying to use the online form to apply a PlusPoint upgrade to an NH flight:

The "optional" field for "Ticket number" should be left empty. Filling it in resulted in an error message upon submission that stated "Try submitting again in 15 minutes or call customer support"

Leaving the field blank and submitting allowed me to apply the request successfully.
Of course, clearing the waitlist is another story...

I also just successfully used 40 PP to upgrade from a paid Z fare to O. From the Room to the Suite : )

Was WL'd, but cleared 2 weeks out (LAX-NRT).

One more data point, my plus points upgrade from HND to JFK cleared from C to O ~24hrs prior to departure.

I have a four segment trip coming up with two segments on UA and two on NH.

I had applied for a PP upgrade on one of the segments and saw that it was waitlisted on the NH website plus the placeholder on the UA website and the note that 40 PP had been deducted. Everything looked ok.

Yesterday I got notice of a schedule change for one of the UA segments - pretty minor - just a few minutes later for departure and and arrival. But I also notice this change seemed to have broken the waitlist request even though the waitlisted NH segment was not directly impacted by the schedule change.
On the NH website, the flight no longer states waitlisted and the UA site no longer shows the placeholder segment. Oddly, the PlusPoints previously applied haven't been redeposited.

Is this something that usually resolves itself or does it typically require a lengthy session with a CSA?

ANA/NH PP upgrade help
 

Hi All,

I am planning a trip leaving Jan 17th 2023 SFO>NRT>CGK and return Jan 28th. Does any NH metal have first out of SFO (or only LA)? Wanted to buy business and use PP's to upgrade to first or buy Prem Econ and upgrade to Business. Any thoughts or stratedgy for the best success?

Thanks!

I just did a similar search looking for flights that have the Suite. I went to the ANA site and looked at 1 ways on the date options and city pairs and booking in first to find the routes with the suite. For example, I am flying today to NRT and wanted to go through ORD because of this reason (buy Business upgrade to the suite), but had to settle for going through IAD because of a schedule requirement on my side and the IAD flight which doesn't have the first on this plane. But, the Business seats are great and 1/3 empty, so all upgrades would have cleared using PP I imagine.

I'm currently seeing the 787-9 on the SFO/LAX-NRT flights for those dates, so no first. They do have premium economy though. Of course, this is subject to plane changes; it appears that the 787-9 is the placeholder for when the schedule has yet to be finalized.

I think the only destination guaranteed to have the Room/Suite right now is JFK.

Thanks.
Prem-Economy on NH Metal is not sold on United's site. Is it better to buy Economy on united.com and upgrade with PP's or Premium Economy on ana and upgrade with PP's. Seems like a lot of fare classes are not available on united.com. ANA must be holding back availability.

You can do an advanced search on UA.com and specify the fare class you'd like to book. You need to book a fairly high fare class to use PPs on NH, so I'd expect there to be availability unless the flight(s) in question are really full.

Of course you can buy NH prem eco on United.com :confused:

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...655c3fd875.png
(NH Premium Economy on United)

Not on every flight. If you search for the flight that OP is looking for -- SFO-NRT-CGK on Jan. 17, operated by NH -- you'll find PE as "not available." The same is true on the way back. If you search with Google Flights, or use multi-city search (SFO-NRT + NRT-CGK), you can get it to come up. The problem is that there's no PE on the NRT-CGK leg, and the website appears reticent to come up with a mixed-cabin itinerary on its own, for some reason.

OP: Keep in mind that SFO-NRT is less than 60% of the total SFO-CGK distance; you'll be spending nearly as long on NRT-CGK on a plane with no PE.

I searched round trip to Jakarta (my final destination) so I did not see Premium Economy as an option. If I just search SFO to NRT/HND it does become available. This must mean I need to do four segments to book the fare class / cabin I want for the PP upgrade?

There is a issue booking PremEcon / PremPlus is some case with a partner flight without the middle cabin. If yo see a flight that should PremEcon / PewmPlus and it does not, then the mutli-city approach will work for many case. So yo don't always need to do this but if you see a problem, then that is the resolution.

Without get into the weeds too much, a PremPlus ticket will book economy of connecting segments but it need to have certain available fare class, if not it fails. Multi-city gets around that. Generally seems to work for major partners but fails for some subsidiary carriers. IME, works for LH group but fails for Air Dolomiti, Helvetic

Yes, you probably need to set this up with a multi-city search. The price you get should be the same as you'd get otherwise.

Note that you're still talking about an expensive ticket here. The deepest discount PE bucket isn't eligible for PlusPoint upgrades. For those dates, the cheapest upgradable fare I see is about $3800. And that's still with two very, very long flights in a non-upgradable economy seat.

Meanwhile, you can book SQ in Premium Economy for 90% of the trip for $2000. Sure, you can't upgrade with PlusPoints, but it still feels like you're coming out ahead to me, especially if your PlusPoint upgrades don't clear.

For $4100, you can fly on Philippine Airlines the whole way in business class, or $4500 for Asiana or $4800 for Cathay.

The upgradable NH seat feels like the worst option of all to me.

All good points. Last time I did this route on UA metal I was upgraded with PP on the SFO-NRT leg. Going back to coach NRT-CGK was not the end of the world....worked away on the laptop. However, I'm going to look hard at the other options

UA agent can’t see ANA upgrade space
 

I have an expert flyer alert set for an ANA flight. This afternoon I got the alert that it became available so I booked the flight on ANA.com. I went to upgrade the flight on UA.com. It sees the upgrade is available and it took me right through to the very end and then gave me an error and told me to call united.

I can see on EF that the upgrade is still available (1 spot left). UA and AC searches are showing availability with miles. So I’m quite sure it is available.

I’ve tried to call three times to united now and have run into three agents who have absolutely no clue what they are doing. Two of them told me flat out they can’t upgrade ANA flights. One of the aforementioned agents put me through to the web support desk who also told me they can’t upgrade ANA tickets.

The third time I asked to be put through to the 1k desk. That agent was more helpful but had clearly never done this before. She also transferred me to web support to someone who has no idea what they are doing. I am now on hold with him.

how can I get through to someone who can actually help me with this and get it done? Im up against a 24 hour ticket cancellation deadline with ANA if I don’t get the upgrade by 1:50pm Athens time tomorrow. Im also traveling right now and have very limited time to deal with this. Would appreciate any help in routing to the correct department.


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...e78570413.jpeg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...7e99f4774.jpeg

Maybe ask for web support?

Need to remember, UA does not process the upgrade for ANA flights. Using the electronic interface, a request is forward to ANA to request ANA to process the upgrade. No UA agent can do anything. And generally will have no knowledge about how it works since they are never involved.

That electronic interface to ANA goes to thru the *A system and occasionally breaks. Again other than to report the issue, no UA agent can process the upgrade. To complete the upgrade ANA needs to request "payment" for upgrade per agreement with UA and UA will debit your account for the PlusPoints

david_oz I'll assume you booked an eligible fare class for the upgrade and the flight is a native NH flight number.

The other thing that bites me sometimes when "Traveling" is countries not matching - if I have a problem with the website, I change my VPN to the US and 90% of the time that solves the problem - but not always

After speaking with a combination of 6 reservation and web support agents I eventually gave up. I refunded the fare and booked the itinerary using miles. Yes, I was booked in U so it was upgrade eligible.

unfortunately this isn’t really what I wanted because it doesn’t get me any PQP and leaves me with unused plus points, but the main thing is I’m in J over the pacific.

Can you try again with a fresh reservation and see if it works ( then cancel the award ticket) or is availability gone? I had a not dissimilar issue last week and there was just something quirky in the reservation that would not allow the upgrade go through (in my case wait-list) and three agents couldn't figure out. I ended up having them reissue fresh ticket and it worked (was 016 stock and not direct from NH like your case so a bit different).

Just waitlisted on NRT-LAX from "The Room" to "The Suite" using 40 Plus Points. This seems like a "can't lose" outcome. :)

Definitely the best thing about PPs (apart from, or maybe equal to, manually clearing at T-72 when available).

I am going to be trying this soon and wondered what exact steps you used.

Did you purchase Z-class and then apply the PPs? Or is there another, better path?