Nottingham Nick

Welcome to Flyertalk

I am glad your first post reports such a positive experience & hope you enjoy your flights. ^

Nick

JMontpelier

Thank you!

buckeyes1212

I'm looking to book the same flight in Sept. Did you search UA or Copa for availability? I haven't been able to find any available seats for the ANA flight from ORD-NRT (HND also) on Copa but it shows availability on UA's site. Also, any tips on how to ask for award booking? I've tried calling a couple times and the CSR that I spoke to don't seem to think that it is possible to book.

Thanks!

JMontpelier

I searched UA and found specific flights with saver availability. When I called VS, I honestly expected to hit a roadblock and then HUCA. But after specifying to the agent that I wanted F saver seats and giving him the exact dates and flights, I was transferred to another agent. Initially, the second agent confirmed the flights in Y. When I clarified that I wanted F, she put me on hold, confirmed the seats within minutes, and gave me a booking reference number for the 24-hour hold.

Before transferring all the miles, I wanted to reconfirm so I called back. That agent was extremely courteous and offered to stay on the line while I transferred the miles. I opted to make the transfer later and call back.

All the agents I dealt with had no problem ticketing an ANA F award. So I'd keep trying.

Guava

Air Japan is valid for award travel per VS Flying Club website. Connecting via Japan is no longer possible on the same award ticket since FC revamps their website and award structure. I guess you can call it a "stealth nerf" since FC did promise no change to partner awards when the changes kicked in back in January. In any event, as pointed out in previous posts, putting your connecting flights on one ticket makes little sense because ANA will charge an astronomical amount of fuel surcharge when your itinerary is not to/from Japan. Their fuel surcharge policy only covers flights to/from Japan or as mentioned on their published chart. Anything else, you are in for some pretty nasty surprises and completely illogical if not outright arbitrary. I know, because I got it clarified with ANA. And yes, VS will add whatever fuel surcharge the ANA reservation tells them on your FC award redemption.

synergypi

right now fuel surcharge for SFO/NRT/HKG return is about $195, not too bad

Guava

Try USA flying to Singapore and return from Hong Kong instead and you will be charged the YQ as if both outbound and returns are to/from SIN instead of the flights you will be actually taking. I raised this point with ANA as it makes no sense. Suffice to say, airlines will always try to get away with high way robbery as long as they can get away with it. YQ = $415

Guava

You can book the above but the connections will be charged separately, check the award chart and see how much it will cost you. Even though you will be charged the miles for 2 separate awards, for the purpose of taxes and surcharge calculation, it is a single itinerary and you will have to pay fuel surcharge instead of zero surcharge. In other words, you are better off to book the above as two separate itineraries b/c the mileage cost is identical but fuel surcharge will not apply.

You will note the words I used were "the same award ticket" which is not the same as "itinerary". This is easily confusing but important to distinguish here.

aln10788

Called in to hold my business class flight ORD to NRT and return HND to ORD in Feb 2018 and was told the taxes would be over $320 total for 2 people. I asked her to confirm this and she did. I called again with 2 seperate dates in Feb with only ORD and NRT and the surcharges jumped to over $400.I have no clue why my taxes would be so much higher than all the other data points in here and why two dates would vary so much. A friend on mine booked this exact same route for Feb 2018 in first and his cost was $160 for 2 tickets. Any ideas why this increase less than a week later?

Guy Betsy

Ya. I tried booking on a revenue flight to check and I think the fuel surcharges are now back on NH flights from/to Japan effective 1st April.

On another matter - does anyone have a link / show what the award miles required are for partner airlines? The old charts seemed to have gone..

Guava

GB, just type in: Virgin Flying Club + name of airline partner concerned into google search and look for "Images". That's the quickest way. Partner award redemption level has not changed so you need not be concerned with possibility of "outdated" chart, at least not yet. This is the easiest way.

For instance, the FC ANA partner award chart can be found here: http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.c...1.00.48-AM.png

ned

Last Sunday evening (US West Coast) I was able to book a round trip for two (LAX-HND-ITM-HND-LAX) on ANA in F and was given a ticket code for both Virgin Atlantic and ANA. That was the good news. Since then I have heard or received nothing. After being told by the first CSR that there was a problem figuring and paying taxes and fees with ANA and to call back in a couple weeks my second call had better results. My credit card was immediately charged $338 for the taxes and fees and I was told I would receive a confirmation email “shortly”. So far nothing. I have spoken to two more CSR’s in the last several days and received different and conflicting information. On my last call I was told ticketing was done manually and it would take up to 72 hours. We are now well past 72 hours. Any advice would be very much appreciated. Thank You

buckeyes1212

If you log into your Virgin Atlantic account on their website, do you see the booking? Mine showed up immediately, even when I was still on the phone with the CSR.

missamo80

Just finished booking RT SEA-NRT in J on ANA for two using points transferred from Chase. No problems at all, total phone call was 19 minutes from start to finish.

Cost: 180,000 miles, $336

I called the US line and had no troubles at all with the phone rep.

Neil

ned

It’s all about the rep you get. My situation is described a few posts upthread. After the first two reps dropped the ball the next two just told me something to get me off the phone my “reservation” was cancelled by NH because VS had not ticketed soon enough. VS was in the process of refunding my taxes and fees. Fortunately I noticed my reservation was gone from the VS web site and called in again. The next rep was a jewel. She took the time to determine what had happened and was able to reinstate the reservation and get the trip ticketed. It took a few calls but was all done within a few hours. As Nottingham Nick has previously said “it should not be this hard”.