Booking ANA First & Business Class With Virgin Atlantic Points

Booked a HND-JFK F seat with VS in February. Was told they don't do award holds anymore, but I was able the confirm the seat, transfer the points from AMEX (instant), then booked the flight. All while on hold.

Is it true you can't book ANA space with Virgin at T-14 anymore if it should open up?

As of last week they couldn’t book any awards close in I assume under 14 days. They said it’s been like that for a few months. I called several times with different agents and no luck at all. I have booked using ana awards with virgin maybe 10 times in the past and understand what to do well and some agents have issues but it seems truly broken atm.

You can't do holds on ANA awards anymore based on my experience w/ VS agents.

A lot of this depends on the agent. I’ve had some really friendly that search and place me on hold while the points transfer. And then I’ve had some that are clearly over their jobs and doing partner searches tell me to look on United instead

Ben, how is award availability on the NRT-HNL route? If I'm not mistaken, you have flown on every other airlines' A380 except NH's... presumably J is similar to that on the 789 and F to the new 777 product, but if the product is accessible, it would still make for a fun/interesting review 🙂

I was just looking out of curiosity at fares, and surprisingly enough you can do NRT-HNL F rt for around 3500€ and 1900€ in J (something like USD 3900 and 2200 respectively I think). It seems to apply from late Sept to end of schedule on most days. Oddly enough when trying to price a mixed cabin itinerary at the NH website, I'm only able to select the respective full flex fares, which almost triples the price of the F round-trip... is there a workaround to this?

I need to keep this in mind once I run out of Amex points to transfer my Chase points to VS and book ANA.
I've looked on United and they cost almost double the points, although they don't have any surcharges so does it come out to be a tradeoff between paying in miles or paying in cash for the difference?

I have a family of 3. How many business class or 1st class seats per flight can you book through Virgin points?

I know econ works and I've seen DPs saying F works, but J is totally broken and has been for 3 full months now, with no sign of change and no official word from ANA/VS

Thanks @Ben I am fairly new to Seats.Aero and was under the impression that because I was not seeing ANA Award Availability through VS/Virgin Atlantic Flying Club specifically that it was - a lost cause Your paragraph here clarifies "Searching ANA awards using Virgin Atlantic points -
While you can’t search or book ANA awards using Virgin Atlantic points through Virgin Atlantic’s website, *the program should generally have access to the same award availability as all of ANA’s other partner airlines.*"
They most often show availability from United and Virgin Velocity now, also on the F award finder you mentioned.

Any tips on finding J/Biz Availability? I think ANA Has a great product all the way around but its hard to find F and even J availability - AA / JAL Definitely has them beat in terms of value just for the simple fact of award availability.

Correct. J is the issue and has been since May. It's pretty well known in the blog community and yet I never see it mentioned.

You can use seats.aero to quickly check availability. NRT-HNL seems to be available in F more often than other transpacific routes, though it's still fairly slim pickings.

Usually ANA doesn't offer more than 1 F and 2 J per flight.

Virgin Atlantic absolutely does not hold ANA award space

Whaaa...?? Oh, god. What could be the issue? No indication if it's something that can be fixed or a permanent policy change? Darn it.

I, too, was unable to book business class tickets on ANA via VA within the 14-day window (as of 11/1/2024)... That's really too bad since ANA award availability generally opens up approaching the departure date. The agent did offer economy award ticket...

Just writing in May 2025 to share i called about a flight in five days that had 2 seats in J, 1 in F on United. They could only confirm the first ticket, neither business ticket showed up

Not sure about the no award hold for ANA with VA. Saw F popped up again today, May 20, for a June 14th ticket. I double checked it on UA that it was available for 220K & on SIA  which is the 1st time an Alliance Award ticket actually shows up on SIA. Aeroplan, no. 
Early Jan 2025, ANA ticket is not bookable if it is less than 14 days.

I called (6.59pm Malaysia time). Followed the prompted choices & an agent was on the phone right away. Told her I wanted to book an ANA award ticket with VA points. She asked me for the date, departure & arrival airport info. I gave her the flight number & said I am hoping the F ticket is still available. She was able to confirm she saw the flight. She asked for my full name, DOB & VA # number. Once she confirmed that was the correct info, she was on the phone with me while she checked if it was available. It took like 3 seconds & she told me it is. She asked what number of points am I seeing this award which I told her I assume that 85K should be the req VA points & she confirmed it. Then comes the fees. The damn fee is USD 325 &  asked if I wanted to proceed. Afte, I said yes she informed me that I do not have enough miles in my VA account now & she is putting the ticket on hold & I have 48 hours to transfer points into VA.

I didn't realize that there was no calling back needed or waiting for a reply from ANA. Unlike my previous experience (see below) for an ANA award ticket via VA.

I prefer to be a bit frugal on my points & $ and I am still hoping for Biz to experience The Room. With Chase 25% bonus transfer & 8k VA points free from Virgin Red last yr. I would only need to transfer 62k for the 85k F ticket. That fee though. Have to make up my mind if I should stick to my SQ ticket.

At the moment finding a biz award ticket from KUL - Tokyo to connect to the HND-JFK flight is very high & I have to get there one day ahead due to timing. E if it comes to it. Since I only have 22k AA left which I need 30K for a direct Biz flight. UA is a ridiculous 90k, Alaska is 45K with 1 connection.

I got lucky for SQ Biz SIN-KU-JFK via aeroplan for 87500 +USD 130. I have flown the a350 before & not particularly whelmed with the angle thing & dredging the 19 hrs direct flight. Aeroplan high cancellation fee, & not much cheaper on change fee. Finding a direct flight or not mixed cabin with aeroplan, is not an easy task. First world problem.

She was amazing & another easy & amazing rep experience on award ticketing. My other ones were all for biz ticket AA for CX EWR-HKG-KUL, Korean for Korean Biz EWR-ICN-SYD & SIA for  SQ JFK-SIN-KUL. All amazing. SIA  said no award hold, but followed by saying he already checked with a supervisor & allow me 5 days an SQ Biz. UA was the only one I called & absolutely no hold on award tickets.
 So from what I learned, ANA award w/ VA points have to be for flights 14 days & later. The catch is you have to be constantly searching and hope to catch one far out enough & still available by time to figure out some of the logistic & call & talk to an agent. UA options which req a lot of flexibility because it is mostly for flights withoutn 9/10 days, with occasional ticket far out. I haven't had any luck finding the ticket 355 days ahead.

I tried to book ANA Biz Award with VA points ( 40%  transfer bonus at the time back in Dec ending Dec 31st) for JFK-HND-KUL. I could not fly until after Jan 10. So I did not end up transfering.  I still did attempt to book an ANA biz but & an agent told me that ANA did not approve/release the ticket. He did not mention the 14 days thing but rather said it's up to ANA .... I found out later that ANA no longer approved the award to VA for flight 14th and closer. A new thing.
However, I waited nervously & checked UA everyday to see how ANA biz shows up and how far ahead. The pattern was consistent, up 9/10 days ahead. 100K + + $14.90 for UA CC/mileage plus member otherwise its 110K + same fee. Yay. UA could be better lower on biz if the award fees on VA is very high. Also no cancellation fee, change fee or redeposit fee or close in fee.I haven't figured out F yet since it is my 1st time doing one. 

Anyhow, I managed to miss the counter luggage check-in by a min! for my ANA in Dec. FYI, if the flight has not taken off, you can still award the ticket for a full refund! Whew, 100K UA miles saved, + award fee returned.

Luckily for my AA miles which are more valuable than you realize. I caught the last JL biz but req airport change from HND to NRT for an awesome 70k + $25.60. So, I ended in Biz on JL a350-1000 which was my initial hope before I found out about ANA The Room. 

ANA award does not show up on VA site. You have to do your search on UA usually for flights less than 10 days, and randoms ones anywhere. Maybe here bit on Aeroplan but AC seems to have alot of it set into mix cabin. You can also try SIA which I found and F under the alliance tab, & ANA itself. They have a award availability search now. It just end up being waitlist thing. Seat.aero was when I saw the F pop up today. I have been on it alot every day, and checking each time to see how accurate the info would be.

I do not have Virgin Australia to check. I think if you see the info that is new enough, about 50-60% you can find it on UA. Then I found more ANA Biz on UA for SFO route that is not shown on Seat.aero. Chgo route is not as competitive & I am seeing one almost every day up to 7-9 days out. No Biz Tok-JFK but it could change. F is my 1st time trying and today it was about 70-80% only bez I check it almost immediately to an hour when it show up. I did not check the Tokyo-HNL F.
The flights they put together & their filter is so bad. I filter for only connection via Tokyo & all they other connections still comes out. When I choose non-stop for Tokyo to ORD, sometimes they will only show NRT-ORD biz but the HND-ORD disappeared. When I check 1 stop, the HND-ORD direct shows up again.
Just make sure to scroll and look at all of the listing since sorting biz 1st does not actually pull all of them to the top.

I run my check on UA & Aeroplan. Aeroplan very few. ANA is weird. I hope it would be easier when they don't req R/T but it might make it harder to book with ANA miles.

Whatever is available. From what I read, 1 F per per flight & 1-2 Biz per day/flight.

Yes, and still true as of June 2025