Update 1/27/23: IT’S BACK! ANA once again has incredible first class award space between San Francisco and Tokyo. Once again we are seeing many dates with 2-4 seats available and some dates with five seats in business class.
Here is a look at availability for at least two passengers from July to October via SeatSpy (if you aren’t familiar with SeatSpy, see SeatSpy: An awesome tool for finding awards. Understand that it isn’t built to show ANA availability, but as explained in the post below it works).
At four passengers, availability thins some with mostly Tuesday-Thursday and Friday availability, but it varies. SeatSpy does not show availability for more than four passengers, but I did find dates via United.com with space for 5 passengers.
This must have changed overnight in Tokyo because when I looked this morning (Eastern time) I only saw one seat on each flight, but then a reader in the comments pointed out the availability of multiple seats around 1pm Eastern time. We’re republishing shortly after 2pm Eastern time on 1/27 — I wouldn’t expect the space to last more than a couple of hours from that time, particularly with this being availability during popular school break time.
Also keep in mind that availability continues to October, when weather may still be warmer than you expect. I once visited Japan in October and learned that the 1964 Summer Olympics was actually held in October in order to escape the summer heat/humidity in Tokyo.
Speaking of Olympic games, as noted in the original post below, this is a moment to run, not walk. This is gold medal availability. The last time we posted this, everything was gone within an hour or two because the ability to book multiple passengers in first class at 55K miles (and about $450 one way or $730 round trip) is that rare. Do not transfer until you get Virgin Atlantic on the phone. Know that you’ll be competing with others against the clock, so space may disappear even while you’re searching. You have to be ready to move quickly. The original post follows.
A reader who shall go down as a legend in my book gave us a heads up that he noticed that ANA First Class is wide open between Tokyo (both Narita (NRT) and Haneda (HND) and San Francisco (SFO), with some dates in the coming months with as many as five award seats in first class, including on aircraft scheduled to feature the newest “The Suite” product. These seats can be booked for just 55,000 Virgin Atlantic miles one-way, which is a phenomenal deal for an experience that would cost $15,000 per passenger with cash.
The Deal
- ANA has wide open first class award availability
between now and the beginning of Junenow between late June and October for up to 5 passengers between San Francisco and Tokyo (both Haneda and Narita, though I believe only Haneda is scheduled with The Suite product right now) - Search via SeatSpy or United.com, call Virgin Atlantic to book for 55,000 miles one way
Quick Thoughts
ANA First Class has long been a revered experience in their old first class product. The new First Class “The Suite” looks amazing. And it is notoriously difficult to book. So difficult, in fact, that View from the Wing recently wrote about how ANA first class awards seemed to be disappearing completely. (Long after publication, I noticed that Gary actually reported this new first class availability well before we did).
That trend has been officially bucked, but I don’t expect it to last. This is the type of availability that will very likely be gone in hours, not days, so if you have “flying in ANA First Class” on your bucket list, now is officially your moment.
That’s because we are seeing handfuls of days with four seats available in first class. We even found a few with five seats in first class!
That’s incredible availability considering the fact that there are only 8 seats in first class.
I believe that only the Haneda to San Francisco (not the Narita) flights are currently scheduled to feature The Suite. Keep in mind that aircraft swaps sometimes happen and there is no guarantee that they’ll fly the plane you booked. But I can confirm that, for example, the flight above is scheduled for The Suite and costs more than $12,000 one-way.
The best way to book this is with Virgin Atlantic miles. That will cost 55,000 miles each way between the West Coast and Tokyo. Adding connections adds to the price and frankly, if you can get this long-haul booked then you want to worry about this now and connections later. Keep in mind that you can now book one-way with Virgin Atlantic points. At this price, book whichever direction you can and figure the rest out later.
Unfortunately, you’ll be on the hook for ANA’s increasing surcharges. Those will set you back about $735 round trip — but paying 110K miles and $735 round trip for ANA First Class is a deal that I’m sure many people will be very happy to accept. One-way can be a bit more painful: we priced out flights from Haneda to San Francisco and fees came to $450 per passenger.
Interestingly, you can use SeatSpy to find these awards. I hadn’t realized it before, but on routes that are served by both United and one of their partners, SeatSpy returns results for both United’s flights and its partners.
For instance, here’s a look at availability via SeatSpy. When the price is 121,000 United miles, you know that’s not a business class saver award but rather a first class saver award. United doesn’t fly an actual 3-cabin first class, so you know this is space on ANA rather than saver-level United space.
Note that Seatspy is showing United’s price, but you’ll want to call Virgin Atlantic to book in order to pay just 55K miles each way. Transfer points from all of the major transferable currencies to Virgin Atlantic / Virgin Red.
Note also that SeatSpy’s inventory isn’t quite real-time. You’ll find some dates that show availability that have already been snapped up, so you’ll need to cross-reference with United.com to make sure seats are available. If you see seats available through United, they will be available to Virgin Atlantic — but wait until you get through the hold time and get to an agent before you transfer. Once you have an agent on the line and confirm the space, you can transfer instantly from any of the major transferable currencies and book on the same call.
Transfer from Amex Membership Rewards points, Capital One miles, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou points, or Bilt Rewards.
Run, don’t walk. This won’t last.
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I booked The Suite and am super excited! I was looking a little closer, and given the flight departure time at SFO (1:45am), the United Polaris lounge will be closed. On ANA’s website (link below) it says:
”Due to limited opening hours of United Polaris Lounge and United club, ANA offers an online meal voucher to customers with lounge access on NH107 flight via your registered email or SMS. The meal voucher can be used at the cafe inside the terminal.”
Anyone have any details on what this might include? Just curious!
https://www.ana.co.jp/en/us/travel-information/lounges/san-francisco/?CONNECTION_KIND=us&LANG=e&BOOKING_TYPE=a&TIER_LEVEL=none
[…] week there was a lot of excitement in the miles and points community when ANA airlines has released a ton of first-class a… Btw, we did share it on our Facebook and Twitter […]
5 seats in first is highly unusual amount of award seats! Prior to Covid, the most they released in advance was 2 seats. Having flown in ANA first, all 4 times only 3 seats out of 8 first seats were occupied. With my spouse and I, in award seats. I don’t know if this represents a change or what. In the last 3 years, ANA was releasing first seats to their own FF program, but no partners. Usually it was just 1 in first, 2 in J, and 4 in economy.
I know Japan Air has been releasing more seats than usual as well. Especially in the 2-3 weeks prior to flight departure. Which ANA seems to be matching, from the trends that I see on point.me. For readers who are desiring first, and cannot secure the award seats, take the business award seats now. Then 2 weeks prior to departure, check and see if any first seats have been released.
just grabbed what I think were the last two seats for October, when I checked initially, I saw seats from SFO to NRT on the 11th, 17th and 19th, the first two dates disappeared during the wait time, but the 19th was still available, HUGE thanks for the heads up
FYI if you thought you missed it, there are still a number of dates in September and October with 2 seats between SFO and Tokyo-Narita (NRT). Not the new “The Suite”, but still ANA first class for 55K. Several Facebook group members have reported successfully booking this today.
I don’t understand why I’m unable to see any partner First availability from the MileagePlus website. I clicked thru each day (every.single.day) from Sept 1 thru Oct 31 and not a single day showed a First Class column in the results. Any tips for an apparent noob like myself?
Seems like there are some dates for HNL-NRT route for summer if those dates work for you
i was able to book SFO-NRT LATE JULY and on the united website it said 777-300ER and also had the price on united for 121k and 5.60usd the only difference was that it was NRT instead of HND, so is that not the suite? or did i do something wrong? i have the ticket on my virgin atlantic app, where can i double check the airplane # also, do they assign your seat in the future? it says seat not assigned
i was lucky enough to pay 55k points and 360USD taxes
aThank you fro your help in advance,
They only have The Suite on select 777-300ERs. The plane currently scheduled to serve the NRT route does not have The Suite, it has their “old” first class product, which is still widely considered one of the best first class experiences out there. Don’t worry, you won’t be disappointed.
thank you, cant compain, do you know where i can find more information on this old first class product like a youtube video
Sure. I haven’t actually watched the whole video apart from seeing that it’s the old seat and I don’t know this YouTube channel, but this is what it is anyway:
https://youtu.be/oXx8j90UMb8
i appreciate it, thank you for the help!! ✈️
Thank you Nick, to say the least. I was at lunchtime yesterday waiting for my pizza when I saw your headline. Immediately, I got on my phone and I was able to snag 3 seats for late June, HND=>SFO using Avianca (had miles burning up due to cancelled flights from Covid). I had no flexibility midweek and an unpleasant second day as a backup. After submitting my request, it was about ~5 minutes when my credit card was finally charged and I got my confirmation. This alone was nerve wrecking to wait and I can’t imagine waiting an hour on the phone (I have to give my hand out to those that did!). One odd in filling my credit card info was the asking of my card security code, followed by a personal code (PID)?
Like you said, I hope this holds and there isn’t a plane swap!!
For now, we are excited!
Your the man Nick, to say the least!!!
Observation: After digging out my ANA ticket numbers from Avianca, I was able to choose our seats. I noticed the flight currently has all of the Rooms available. Therefore, I suspect they will become available at some point.
BTW – we already had our seats SFO=>HND (1 first, 2 business) on JAL.
This sweetness is now complete and is icing on the cake for our tour!!
all im finding is NRT is this still a good deal for that?
What pricing?
the same 121k miles on united, but it isnt HND like in the screenshot
It’s still a ~$12,000 first class ticket for 55,000 Virgin Atlantic miles and $350 or $450. This was a long coveted redemption well before they debuted the new first class. I wouldn’t hesitate to book it – though I say that as someone who prioritized getting something booked from HND. Still, if I had time to fit in another trip this year and it were available, I’d be thrilled. 55K is far less than what most programs charge for *business* class to Asia.
I wouldn’t pay 121K via United though.
saw one! HND and they snagged it when i was on the phone with virgin ugh!
When I search on United, I’m requesting First in the search but the results don’t even have a First column, just Business @ ~200k miles. Tried on both UA app and laptop browser site. Am I doing anything wrong, or is the First column hidden when none available?
I assume the availability is gone at this point, but curious how to search in future.
Hidden on dates when none is available.
If I see a flight is available on United, is it for sure that the availability is bookable for VA?
How much were the fees for 2 people? I booked and it was $450 x 2 ($900) even though I booked in the same call. My friend booked for 2 and it was $721 flat. A little strange how this worked. Not sure if it’s worth waiting for 2 hours on hold to get this corrected
You booked from Japan to the US and I’m guessing your friend booked the opposite direction.
Yep! That is the case. Are the fees less if we fly out of US?
Yes. The United States doesn’t have a departure tax, but most other countries do. As a result, fees departing most countries are higher than depending the US. For example, use United miles to fly United from the US to Germany and you’ll pay $5.60. Fly United from Germany to the US and you’ll pay about $95 in fees. Depart Finland and it’s about $60. Those are just two examples. It really varies, but around a $100 departure tax is common. The rest of the fees here are surcharges.
ANA emailed me that fees on their awards will go down to $329 starting Feb 1 for the Feb1 to March 31 booking period. I get their Mileage Club emails.
After this frenzy I am placing the odds of Virgin devaluing ANA awards at 100%.
Still tons of availability left if you’re flexible.
Thanks Nick for the updated article! Just booked my family of three in F with NH HND-SFO using AV LM for 360k+$281.55. Google Flight is about $37k total. Just about 10 cpm. Pretty decent!!
That’s interesting.You decided to use 65K more points and pay $260 less in fees. Did you have a huge bank of points stuck in LM?
At 120k LM I am guessing they are connecting beyond HND or SFO.
Not sure, where you’re heading. Yes it’s 65K less, but $350 more in fess per ticket, which would come out about less then half cents. On top of that, I don’t want to spend time calling and waiting in line for VA call center to book the ticket, based on past bad experience. I need to secure the tickets for my family, right away. I don’t want to pay $1k+ in fess. Just not crazy in paying all those high fees, like NH charges.
Tipped off by Thrifty Traveler (just paid off my annual fee there).
Just booked F seats for my wife and I in Sept (to replace our JAL Biz already booked to SFO). VS 55k miles +$450 each. Flying Cathay Biz from LAX then Cathay onto SIN (AS free stopover). Now eyeing SIN-HND in SQ F.
Thank you Frequent Miler for all the tutorials.
How much does thrifty traveler charge?
noooooooooo… … I am too late. with times are so long no way the space will be there when its my turn.
I got on the phone and United showed 2 seats on both Oct 3rd and Oct 19… but the agent didn’t see it. I clicked refresh and they were gone. I will say Virgin Atlantic agents are definitely the best. He stayed on the line with me for 20 minutes as I searched day after day looking for availability for 2. Alas… no luck this time for me. but maybe I’ll look for last minute business class seats in Oct now that I have 110k miles in Virgin Atlantic….