RAPC

Possibly. ANA availability is not a good guide for Virgin, but United usually is. That said, availability via United doesn't map accurately to what ANA makes available to Virgin.

United shows Star Alliance availability, whereas Virgin gets whatever ANA chooses to give to a non-alliance partner.

FlyerBeek

Yes, I've been successful twice in the last week booking an ANA F ticket through Virgin. One for July 2024 and the other for March 2025. Availability matched what was displayed on United.com.

-FlyerBeek

gruby

Having this issue as well, Virgin Australia and United both show availability, but calling in, they cannot find it - tried a few days. Seems like it happened recently - this week.

sppe

I'm experiencing the same thing. Tried to book a couple close in flights that showed on United and Virgin Australia and all were denied.
The agent mentioned that they were seeing a lot of this recently, but didn't know if anything particular was going on.

Both were J flights in May, fwiw.

gruby

Same, J from west coast -> TOK, in may/early june.

sppe

Mine were ORD -> HND. So I guess it's not region-specific.
Too bad. It would have been perfect with the 30% transfer bonuses.

GiantCow

Just booked a one way over the weekend, not close-in though, for a Dec flight.

HawaiiO

UA is not real time
UA could still show availability even when the single seat has already been booked by someone else.

Mttrnd

Another, somewhat 'disruptive' data point....

Recently booked and flew LHR-NHD in J, via UK VS call centre.

Availability had been showing via UA, but then disappeared an hour or so before I got time to call up.

I thought I would have a chat with the call centre anyway. They advised it was worth sending a request anyway, as NH was making different availability to them since the Skyteam move that did not always match *A searches.

Availability was confirmed straight away, despite there not being availability showing on *A/UA in real time.

They seem to be restricting NH availability requests to 3 per call.

franniemeow07

Another DP with no problems booking if within the 330/331 window.

On 5/8 around 11 pm PST, I randomly found SFO - NRT in F for March 2025. Called VS and booked within 15 min. Transferred 47000 chase points (in addition to 14,100 from the 30% bonus, also had 11,700 points stranded at VS from a closed Citi account) for total of 72500 points + $249.80 in fees


tonight around midnight PST I randomly found HND - JFK in F for mid April 2025. Called VS and she immediately confirmed availability. She waited while I transferred 65000 chase points (with 19,500 bonus, had 700 miles leftover from previous transfer) and booked. I checked UA immediately and flight already disappeared from inventory.

In the last few weeks when I have failed, it was when I was chasing flights at the end of schedule that were not quite released yet (I was told 5 am UK time is when seats become bookable by VS) but were already showing on UA. Did not try any close in bookings (my work schedule is hideously inflexible and comes out a year in advance).

my biggest piece of advice for finding these:
be obsessively refreshing all the dates in your travel window for all airports the ANA flies into, to the point where it’s frankly unhealthy. Honestly I felt a bit like I was going crazy with the addictive nature of the whole process.

sppe

I think it�s more than just this. I ended up booking through United after being denied by Virgin because I really wanted that date, and it went through. The flight had also not appeared on seats.aero yet, so I think my competition was probably quite low.

joejones

Business class award prices just went up. West Coast is now 52,500 in C / 72,500 in F each way, while East Coast is now 60,000 in C / 85,000 in F each way. Sucks, but still one of the best deals available.

https://onemileatatime.com/news/virg...es-ana-awards/

CosmicGirl

F from the East coast has been 85k each way since March last year.

Burj

Congrats on finding flights and thanks for sharing your experience!

Were you using united.com for your search? How did you go about using united.com? When I've used it there is only a "business/first" option but no way I could see to search JUST for F...

franniemeow07

Yes, I used united.com exclusively. use the 30 day calendar so you can click through the weeks a little easier. there is no way to search for just NH F, unfortunately. Literally it is just brute force clicking on each day/box (happy to be corrected if I'm wrong!). There is nothing in the number or font color that will help you identify an F flight without clicking the box. Believe me, I used to think that it's useless to be checking so frequently and that nothing would ever show up but my recent experience has made me a believer. Or maybe I'm catching the flights after they are cancelled by someone else, but before they are going to ANA MC waitlisted people? I can't imagine that NO ONE from ANA MC waitlisted these award flights that I snagged. Who knows, I can only speculate. It is SO random.

Maybe this is super obvious and I don't even need to mention it. (it probably is). There is no F if there are only 3 columns displayed (economy, premium economy, business). If there is a F flight available, there will be 4 columns displayed across (not just 3). so as soon as you see 4 columns get excited, something is hiding somewhere.