To kick off the return portion ofour winter trip to Tokyo & Niseko, I flew ANA’s Boeing 737-800 Premium Class on the short domestic flight from Sapporo (CTS) to Tokyo Narita (NRT), prior to connecting to ANA’s Airbus A380 first class to Honolulu (HNL).
Continue reading: Review: ANA Lounge Sapporo Airport (CTS)
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
“computer says no” situations in Japan are the worst. I appreciate the review!
No Ramen counter? No Chef? HND is my fav ANA lounge. I regularly hit that one on flights back to HNL where I live as well.
Basically the same at NRT, sans views. No lounge is worth going to at CTS in my opinion (unless you need to write a review), given some of the outstanding food options. The JAL first lounge there is marginally better.
@Ben
Did you show your second boarding pass to the staff, or just accepted the rejection?
Of course the system will reject the CTS to NRT boarding pass, as it not connected to the second booking and thus does not qualify, scanning NRT to HNL should also in itself result in a rejection by the system, as it is not from CTS. But the agents should manually override the system if you show them both. Not clear if you did that, and they rejected.
@ CPH-Flyer — Correct, I scanned the second boarding pass and also tried to explain the situation to lounge staff, to no avail.
What you could have done is at check in they can link the two PNRs (this is what they do when you're checking bags through) and that should have allowed the scanner to pick up the F ticket.
Having said that, even the F lounge is very bare.
To be fair, NH is one of the most overrated airlines. The high ratings probably come from *Alliance members accustomed to flying UA and LH. So when they try NH they are pleasantly surprised. The NH Tokyo lounges are only slightly better: Boring food and crowded.
It seems like without any food, they're basically just asking you to get supremely intoxicated in there.
I am surprised the lounge staff did not manage that. But ANA staff is not really what they used to be.
Rice crackers and some candy that's it for solids. Though to be fair, if you go to the Sakura Lounge on the JAL side, rather than the Diamond Premier lounge, the selection of snacks is the same level.
ANA offers Premium class on way more routes than JAL though, so I'm not sure it's a fair comparison.
For example, on any full size narrowbody, ANA offers premium class, but JAL will only have Class J on its narrowbodies. ANA also flies much larger widebody planes domestically with higher frequencies, where JAL will be doing narrowbodies. You can do a direct comparison at NRT, where ANA and JAL fly 737s to basically all the same places, but ANA offers Premium Class with food/drink service, and JAL does not.
Also regardless, the domestic Japanese lounges are largely basic anyways. I think it's fine that ANA restricts its Suite Lounge to Diamond members.
It's more of a Star Alliance/Oneworld diff, as OWE get access to JAL Diamond lounges, but Star Alliance Gold only gets access to the ANA Lounge rather than the Suite Lounge.
As someone that flies domestically in Japan a lot, it's not common practice to hole up in lounges like you do in the US.
Domestic flights are more like commuter shuttle services and people often buy tickets at the airport, close to departure time on the day of.
Beyond that, it's not uncommon for passengers to bring their own food and snacks from outside.
Very true. Before domestic flights, you could get better food option at NRT terminal 3 (LCC terminal) where some of the food venue accept PP and give you around 3000JPY = $22 food credit (more than enough to have a full meal).
Nice review! I visited the ANA HND lounge a couple of months ago. On paper they’re not great (90 min wait for a shower, pretty crowded) but in practice I quite like them. The seating configurations are efficient for solo travellers to the point you don’t really notice you’re near other people, and the “signature” beef curry is available. Also, crowded environments are far more peaceful in Japan in the first place; in a US lounge you’d have your neighbour shouting on the phone about their “important business deal” 😉
Nah, not really. Their international first and business products are top notch overall.
its really interesting that you couldn't use the Suite lounge. Back in 2018 I flew from CTS-JFK via NRT, first leg on Jetstar second leg on ANA in F. I figured I'd try my luck with the Suite lounge, and they let me in even though my CTS-NRT leg was not ANA. Must've caught the lounge staff on a good day, because that shouldn't have been legal.
ANA is both excellent and overrated. It's certainly in the upper level, but not as much as the people and the flight reviewers constantly praise about.