Old May 10, 2017, 11:29 pm
FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides
Last edit by: WineCountryUA
Upgrading on flights operated by ANA
PlusPoints can be used on flights operated by All Nippon Airways (ANA) for one-segment, one-cabin upgrades on any multi-cabin international flight operated by ANA and marketed by ANA or United. Upgrades are subject to availability and valid for paid, published fares only. The following ANA fare classes are eligible for PlusPoints upgrades: B, C, D, E, G, J, M, U and Y. PlusPoints cant be used to upgrade from Economy to Premium Economy on ANA-operated flights. Please see the terms and conditions below for specific eligibility rules.
Multiple reports Z works also contrary to the above. Don't ask, just do it (for now), since at least 2022
Originally Posted by Lux Flyer
The PlusPoints upgrade system with NH/LH appears to be a slightly modified version of the star alliance upgrade award system (using PP instead of miles obviously). Given Z is a valid booking code on NH for a SAUA, not really surprising if there was an oversight in adapting the system to work for PlusPoints upgrades and someone forgot to either add Z-fare being allowed in the official T&C, or forgot to take Z-fares out when the upgrade request system validates the booking code.

Each NH/ANA segment requires an unique GPU. A a single GPU can not be used for two ANA segment nor for a connecting UA segment

Summary of Practical Advice from this thread:

* If you have bought a ticket from United (e.g., cause you want PQDs), you likely have UA codeshares of NH-operated flights. However, only NH-ticketed flights can have upgrades requested. When you have these flights, you need to call United (e.g., the 1K desk) and tell them you want to use GPUs on this itinerary. What they will do is modify your ticket so that the codeshares are replaced with the native flight numbers. This takes 10-15 minutes. You will still need to separately request the upgrades using the United GPU request form (link below) for LH/ANA flights.

* The web form will ask for information from your ticket. You will need to enter the NH flight numbers. Also it will ask for your confirmation code and can use the United-issued confirmation code (not the NH confirmation code)

* You should be able to verify in advance whether the upgrade is going to clear based on NH inventory. I class is for Y->J upgrades and O class is for J->F. These are also the business and first 'saver' award buckets, and can be estimated by doing phantom bookings of award travel for the same flights. If saver awards are showing up the classes should be available. Expertflyer and other sites can also show the availability.

* The T&Cs suggest that you cannot request upgrades until 8 weeks before the flight, but various flyertalkers have confirmed upgrades beyond the 8 week window.

* If your upgrade is not confirmed, you can keep trying before the flight. Waitlisting is now an option (for NH/ANA)

* There seems to be mixed opinion on whether O and I class inventory is put back into the system as the flight gets closer, but several have reported finding inventory show up 2-3 weeks before the flight.

* Fare mapping from ANA to UA:
J/C/D/Y/B = J/C/D/Y/B
G/E = O/A

Below are various T&Cs from United relevant to the applicability of fares, etc, copied from the website.

updated May 2023
  1. Upgrades are valid only on ANA.
  2. Requests for upgrades can be made after you have purchased your ticket. Upgrades can be requested until 24 hours prior to departure. Your MileagePlus account number and password are required to complete the request.
  3. PlusPoints upgrades may not be requested when you travel on industry discount, agency discount, deeply discounted promotional tickets, award tickets using miles, or tickets purchased on websites where you dont know the exact flight itinerary or airline until after youve paid for the ticket.
  4. ANA may impose blackout periods where upgrades are not permitted.
  5. You may request PlusPoints upgrades for up to four people traveling on the same reservation. The amount of PlusPoints required is listed per passenger for each itinerary and deducted at time of request; to upgrade additional people, youll need to use additional PlusPoints. (If the reservation has more than four travelers, you will need to call the operating carrier.) You do not need to be traveling with the passengers to request the upgrades and you can request upgrades for travelers with a different last name than yours.
  6. While you can only request upgrades for one segment at a time, you may upgrade more than one eligible segment on the itinerary.
  7. Double upgrades from Economy to First are not permitted on three-cabin aircraft.
  8. Standby is not permitted, but waitlisting is permitted. Waitlisting is now an option (for NH/ANA)
  9. An upgrade may be confirmed within eight weeks of departure, if a seat is available.
  10. Mileage accrual is based on the original ticketed booking class, not the upgraded class of service.
  11. Requests for seat assignments, special meals and amenities should be made directly with the operating carrier.
  12. If you wish to make changes or cancel your PlusPoints upgrade request, please contact ANA.
  13. If an ANA segment of your itinerary is canceled, the upgrade request for that segment will also be automatically canceled. Your PlusPoints will be automatically redeposited 24 to 48 hours after the cancellation.
  14. PlusPoints upgrades are not available through general selling agents.
How to request

Once the ticket has been issued, requests can be made online through the Global Premier Upgrade on ANA or Lufthansa request page. You can make upgrade requests for ANA-operated flights beginning eight weeks before departure until up to 24 hours before departure. You can make upgrade requests for Lufthansa-operated flights beginning 331 days before departure until up to 10 hours before departure.

You may request Global Premier Upgrades for up to four people traveling on the same reservation. You will need one Global Premier Upgrade for each traveler. (If the reservation has more than four travelers, you will need to call ANA or Lufthansa.) You do not need to be traveling with the passengers to request the upgrades and you can request upgrades for travelers with a different last name than yours. While you can only request upgrades for one segment at a time, you may upgrade more than one eligible segment on the itinerary.

If upgrade space is available at the time of the request and the requester chooses to confirm the upgrade, United will automatically deduct Global Premier Upgrades from the requester's MileagePlus account.

How to request for codeshare flights

If you are traveling on an ANA- or Lufthansa-operated codeshare flight with a United flight number, upgrades may be available and can be requested by calling 1-800-UNITED-1 (1-800-864-8331) within the U.S. and Canada, elsewhere call your local United Customer Contact Center.
Acrhive: Using PlusPoints on NH / ANA {Archive}
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Using PlusPoints on NH / ANA

Old Feb 1, 2022, 2:17 pm
  #1  
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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?
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Old Feb 1, 2022, 6:07 pm
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Originally Posted by Atuchan
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.
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Old Feb 1, 2022, 7:20 pm
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Originally Posted by Atuchan
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?
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.
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Old Feb 27, 2022, 8:53 pm
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Originally Posted by cfischer
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,
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Old Feb 27, 2022, 9:28 pm
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Originally Posted by Atuchan
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.
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Old Mar 6, 2022, 9:54 pm
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Originally Posted by WineCountryUA
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?
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Old Mar 6, 2022, 10:15 pm
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Originally Posted by Atuchan
....
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
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Old Apr 5, 2022, 3:18 am
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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
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Old Apr 5, 2022, 8:15 am
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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.
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Old Apr 5, 2022, 10:03 am
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Originally Posted by uastarflyer
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
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.
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Old Apr 5, 2022, 5:50 pm
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Originally Posted by dkc192
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?
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Old Apr 5, 2022, 7:10 pm
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Originally Posted by dkc192
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.

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

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.
I couldnt 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
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Old Apr 5, 2022, 11:55 pm
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Originally Posted by uastarflyer
...
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
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Old Apr 6, 2022, 4:44 pm
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Originally Posted by UA_Flyer
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.
B should be easy. If it has an NH flight #. You need to use the NH PNR and not the UA PNR. Should work.
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Old Apr 6, 2022, 8:47 pm
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Thanks for crowd sourcing the answers for me

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 doesnt clear Ill be slightly Pd in PP.
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