lovetotravel

Were you able to see your booking on virgin website prior to ticketing?
I just put one on hold yesterday so I could transfer points but the held booking does not show in my account.

js22

Are there any tricks to booking Tokyo round trip one year out? ANAs schedule goes out a full year but Virgin Atlantic is only out 11 Months. Expert Flyer shows very little availability between the 11 to 12 Months out from LAX/SFO/IAH/ORD to TYO. It appears most of the awards bookings are gone by the time the dates open up within Virgin Atlantics 11 Month window.

sfp

Thought I'd share my experience. I called in to book LAX-NRT HND-ORD after finding availability about 2 months out, end of Aug-middle Sep. First agent held HND-ORD for me, but couldn't see LAX-NRT even though I could see availability on expertflyer and united. After trying a few times with him, I HUCA and reached an agent to look up the first leg again for me. She transferred me to someone else because she wasn't "trained in upper class bookings". The upper class agent I spoke with was awesome. She saw the LAX-NRT availability, attached it to my HND-ORD flight I had on hold, I transferred 115k miles in from Chase (instant), and paid ~$250 in taxes. I don't know if this made a difference - but I gave this last agent the flight number in addition to dates/airports. Maybe the first agent was only looking at the first flight of the day from LAX, on which there was no availability. Anyway, I'm excited!

One other thing I thought I'd mention - I noticed availability changing around a bit even now for August/September, over the last couple of days. So hang in there if you're trying to make something work and keep searching.

jmj10

I found when I called (and what I researched beforehand), to definitely have the flight number to give. That being said, the agent I dealt with was also AWESOME! Such an easy, painless experience. We're flying ORD-HND, NRT-ORD in November. I'm hoping for the BB-8 star wars plane!

xOTian

Hi,

New to Flyer Talk and the Points game in general. I see that ANA has availability on their website from LAX to Hong Kong round trip for 85,000 Pts on Business Class.

Would I expect to pay the same amount of points using Flying Club miles or is it totally different award chart?

Thanks

sfp

Totally different! I used Virgin Atlantic points because I could transfer them from Chase (i.e., my sapphire reserve card).

xOTian

Understood. But I was wondering how many UR points or FC points do I need for a 85,000 point flight on ANA's website.

sfp

You can't transfer UR or FC points to ANA, so the 85,000 figure is irrelevant. You'd only pay that if you had ANA points. You can, however, book ANA flights using Flying Club/Virgin Atlantic points (which is also a transfer partner for UR). You'd have to look up the flight using Virgin Atlantic's mileage chart and/or call in to their reservation center to price it out. You won't get the right pricing for FC points if you're looking up the flight on ANA or other partner websites (e.g., united).

xOTian

Thanks for the reply. Called the Flying Club a few hours ago and it seems for the flight I was looking at it was 85,000 Flying Club Points. So don't know if it is always 1:1 for ANA points vs Flying Club points. So I went ahead and transferred over 170,000 UR points to book 2 tickets. Almost $8900 in value from Orbitz, very happy with that I got into this hobby.

synergypi

Seems to conflict with the VAFC ANA chart and guidelines for connecting flights (If a journey requires a connecting flight or stopover to reach the destination, miles are charged for each sector) LAX to Hong Kong via Tokyo should be 135K in biz. Did you get the tix for 85K?

newyorklondon

My wife and I have two F returns on hold with ANA using VS miles.

VS are having trouble adding our infant-in-arms to the booking using miles+taxes. Does anyone know the reason for this? Is it even possible, or does it need to be a cash addition direct with ANA?

Thank you!

newyorklondon

I shall answer my own question! YES, it is possible, just keep trying. For SFO-NRT r/t it's 14k VS miles and about Ł45.

Which is a *lot* better than the initially quoted 10% adult fare, which was coming in at around $2k!

newyorklondon

Yes, and a positive one! I don't want to keep posting the same info in case that's againt FT regulations, so please see this post.

coconutjay

Hi,
New to this program, but can't find any information on whether ANA can be used from Toronto to Tokyo. This would be booked with VS miles. I not sure this is the right spot, but any help would be appreciated. Trying to decide if this program is the best for trips to Tokyo from Toronto. I wasn't sure if the flights that are shared with United can be part of the redemption with VS.

Thank you

newyorklondon

I don't believe ANA flies that route directly, in which case you'd be on a UA metal connecting flight, which I don't think are eligible as a VS redemption (unless someone here knows otherwise).

If you make your own way to Vancouver, Washington D.C., NYC etc, then you can use VS miles on the direct ANA flights (just book well in advance - like 11 months in advance - for business or first)! The only issue here is that because these will two separate bookings, they would not be considered protected connections, so you will not be entitled to rebooking or a refund in either direction if the first flights is delayed causing you to miss your second flight.