Ghoulish

From what I understand ANA only releases 2 award seat per flight in business, so book early.

If you're flying out of NYC try to get row 5 in TheRoom mini cabin (avail on the 777-300er)

paperwastage

not if you're booked via 016 ticket

the rear of the plane, usually all seats are "available" unless everyone else took them, middle/front of economy is usually middle-seat only until checkin



from last experience, ANA stops allowing online seatmap access @ T-48 (and I believe it disappears from EF, cant remember)
and since you're flying out of EWR, you can't check in via ANA.com to choose seats (need to do via United)

when you check in at united (at the kiosk), you should be able to pick seats on the ANA flight, and pick a better seat when it opens up

for ANA (and other airlines), some seats do not allow armrests to go up.
luckily, ANA's seat map explicitly points out this fact, see https://www.ana.co.jp/en/us/travel-i...ap/b777-300er/

emcampbe

i believe unless you are ticketed via ANA, you cannot pay for seats that require payment. I just had the same scenario, on an AC ticket, where NRT-SIN was on a native ANA flight number, and the SIN-NRT was an AC codeshare number.

on outbound, I could go to ANAs site and select the free seats. I can’t remember exactly how paid windows and aisle showed, but there was a
message saying I could not select paid seats. Called ANA as well and was told I could not select paid seats either, including wanting to pay for them. We were initially seated about 4 rows from the last as that was all that was available - we ended up being able to choose bulkhead (for free) at checkin. On return, only able to use AC site to select [free] seats but we were able to get them fairly close to front of the free section. ANA site told us we could not select seats since we were on ‘AC’ flight. Nothing better available at checkin, so we kept what we had.

a bit unfortunate that ANA won’t even allow one to pay for seats on OAL stock, but maybe they will figure out a way to make it work at some point - IIRC, there was the same issue with LH a number of years ago, but they changed it to allow this at some point.

tcdtcd

Had that experience this week SIN-HND. If UA-ticketed, no way to pay for a cash upgrade to PE or Biz. I asked phone agent and at check in. Rules are rules in Japan.🙄

Kacee

I've never had an issue on a business class ticket on 016 stock. The issue is with seat selection in economy. My solution is don't fly economy long haul :-)

Been that way forever. One of the reasons cancelation of UA tag NRT-BKK was such a big blow for those who used to upgrade all the way to BKK. Now there's no way to get into J for the TYO-BKK segment on an upgraded UA Y ticket.

Ghoulish

Love ❤️ ANA and JAL service, precision, quality, am a bit of a Japanophile, but for whatever reason, the ability to develop a good web based user interface seems to completely elude every single company in Japan.

bmwe92fan

I totally get this -- until I married a Japanese woman lol.... It's a curious thing the way websites are laid out in Japan -- but honestly to them it is very logical -- it reminds me of going to the doctor or the ward office or a hospital -- everything is laid out the way you (as a Japanese person) expects and navigation is simple -- my wife FLIES around the ANA site -- while I need a drink just to operate it....

notquiteaff

So if you book tickets with a bunch of toddlers, they get seats in different rows than their parents?

emcampbe

no - unless all the free seats in the back are sold out.

issue is - all the aisle/windows in the first several rows require payment - at least on lower fare classes (believe somewhere midway up the chain of fares or so, they are free for anyone). So if you book into one of those lower classes, seats in the first many Y rows - definitely the entire forward Y cabin, and the first few rows in the second, require payment. There are several rows in the back (probably starting in the low 30s somewhere on 789, at least) where you can select any seat. It’s possible on busy flights that these might be taken, though. Maybe ANA would help arrange for free seats for family if there is none in back - don’t know. Not my preferred area to sit, but we found 4 adjacent seats on both our flights. The paid seats also open to all for free at checkin - like Insaid upthread, I was able to snag seats in row 20 (first bulkhead row in Y on the 789) for me and my family at check in.

bmwe92fan

You have to understand that revenue management in Japan works differently than in America -- my (Japanese) wife will basically require that we book almost a year in advance because the rule in Asia is that prices only go UP -- and never down -- as departure dates get closer -- it's like an unwritten rule in Japan -- and I can't say I've ever seen it not be true -- and for award space -- it's basically impossible to get until a week before departure -- so I'm guessing she's right.... Revenue management in Japan is disciplined and consistent -- right or wrong it is what it is...

SPN Lifer

My General Member wife booked a MileagePlus award ticket (X fare) MNL-NH-NRT-UA-GUM-UA-SPN today and had no problem getting a window seat on the NH segment aboard a 787-10.

She will have five hours to hang around the ANA Lounge.

mcgahat

After reading this, my recent experience makes more sense. I was booked in business but when looking at the seat maps, I noticed a lot of middle seats occupied with the window and aisle seats empty. It seemed odd to me but makes sense now.

s0ssos

Maybe there is a reason, but why do train tickets in Japan remain the same price forever? It is just that some trains get sold out.
Everybody knows Japan is most deflationary (you don't buy a house for an investment, for example) but funny how some things are priced like the US (eg airfare) and some things aren't (eg train tickets, never a deal other than JR pass, always the same price). Oh yeah, hotel prices do vary as well.

lsquare

UA website says it may not be accurate and I should refer to NH's website. Won't I need to complete the booking in order to see a seat map on NH's website? I'm not too excited about this NH flight based on what I'm seeing on UA's website as it's all middle seat. I haven't been in a middle seat on a tpac flight in ages! 😱😳😯

paperwastage

WHen buying discounted Y NH tickets, you only get access to mostly middle seats (plus limited aisle/window seats at the rear of the plane).

Any remaining seats open up during checkin

https://www.ana.co.jp/group/en/pr/20...0190417-2.html

On a UA 016 ticket, you can't pay the extra seat selection fee to guarantee a better seat