Booking ANA First & Business Class With Virgin Atlantic Points

In this post I wanted to take an in-depth look at what I consider to be a solid sweet spot award redemption, which involves redeeming Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points on All Nippon Airways (ANA). This continues to be a good deal, though we’ve now seen this redemption devalued twice in the past couple of years.

Let us take a look at how to earn Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points, how Virgin Atlantic redemptions on ANA work, and whether this redemption is even useful anymore, given ANA’s stinginess with award availability.

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How to earn Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points

If you don’t currently have Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points, don’t worry, as there are lots of ways to earn them with transferable points currencies, as all transfer at a 1:1 ratio:

• Convert Amex Membership Rewards points to Virgin Atlantic; best cards for earning Amex points
• Convert Capital One miles to Virgin Atlantic; best cards for earning Capital One miles
• Convert Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Virgin Atlantic; best cards for earning Chase points
• Convert Citi ThankYou points to Virgin Atlantic; best cards for earning Citi points

If you really want to maximize value, we sometimes see transfer bonuses from these programs to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, which can stretch your points even further. When we do see transfer bonuses, in most cases they’re in the range of 25-30%.

On top of that, the Virgin Atlantic Flying Club program sells points directly, and there are often even bonuses.

Redeeming Virgin Atlantic points on All Nippon Airways

While Flying Club is far from my favorite loyalty program, it has some incredible niche redemptions that you won’t find through other programs, that can make accruing Flying Club points with a specific use in mind an excellent idea.

My single favorite use of Flying Club points is redeeming on All Nippon Airways.

Virgin Atlantic redemption rates on ANA

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club has a zone based award chart for travel on ANA, and you can find the redemption rates below (these prices are roundtrip, though you can book one-ways for half the cost of a roundtrip).

As you can see, all awards are to & from Japan, so if you plan on connecting beyond Japan, you’ll need to book your ticket as two separate awards. The good news is that since you can book one-ways for half the cost of a roundtrip, you can easily mix-and-match options. For example:

• You could fly one-way in first class and one-way in business class
• You could fly from the US to Japan, and then fly from Japan to Europe

I want to specifically call out that:

• One-way business class awards between the US mainland or Europe and Japan cost 52,500-60,000 points, while business class awards between Hawaii and Japan cost 37,500 points
• First class awards between the US mainland or Europe and Japan cost 72,500-85,000 points one-way, while first class awards between Hawaii and Japan cost 57,500 points

I think all of those redemption opportunities potentially represent a great deal, especially with what a good product ANA offers.

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.

The one catch is that there have been reports lately that award availability between the US mainland and Japan isn’t bookable through Flying Club within 14 days of departure. This is just supposed to be temporary, so hopefully it’s fixed soon.

The bad news is that finding premium cabin award availability on ANA can be really tough. The airline often only releases one first class award seat per flight, and even that isn’t consistent, as many flights don’t have any first class award availability.

So, how should you go about searching availability? The website seats.aero is great for this, as it has an ANA first class award finder, which will show you all the dates with first class award availability. Just keep in mind this isn’t necessarily 100% real time, so you’ll also want to search availability through another website. I’d recommend aircanada.com or united.com, as both show all Star Alliance award availability online.

Seeing the award pricing through United MileagePlus will make you even happier about Virgin Atlantic Flying Club’s pricing. 😉

Booking ANA awards using Virgin Atlantic points

While it’s annoying that you have to call to book these awards, the good news is that Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club agents are the most competent in the industry. They’re actually awesome. You can phone up Flying Club from the US by calling 800.365.9500.

After you’ve determined which flights are available, call up Virgin Atlantic and give the representative the exact flights and class of service you want. The agent will look up the space, which may take a few minutes.

Often they’ll get back to you after a few minutes and say that the space confirmed. However, often they won’t get an immediate response from ANA (though the space should match what other partners see).

In those instances you’ll be given a confirmation number and will be told to call back in a few hours to see if the space confirmed. If you did your research correctly, you should be good.

Then just call back a short while later and book.

Virgin Atlantic fuel surcharges on ANA

Virgin Atlantic passes on whatever carrier imposed surcharges ANA would have on revenue tickets. ANA publishes its fuel surcharges, and updates them periodically, as they’re based on Singapore’s jet fuel price index.

The easiest way to look these up the total cash you’ll have to pay is through ITA Matrix — just look up the itinerary there for the cabin you’re traveling in, look at the fare breakdown, and expect to pay everything except the base fare.

At the moment ANA’s fuel surcharges are quite high, though not as high as they were several months ago. For a one-way ticket from Tokyo to New York in business class, you can expect to pay around $315 at the moment, with $247.60 of that being fuel surcharges.

Virgin Atlantic award holds on ANA

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club can hold ANA awards for up to 48 hours. More accurately, they request the space, and once they do that, it’s 48 hours before the flights drop out of the record. So you do have up to 48 hours, which should be plenty of time to transfer points.

Generally points transfers from Amex, Capital One, Chase, and Citi, to Virgin Atlantic, are all instant.

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club award change & cancelation fees

If you want to change or cancel an ANA award ticket booked with Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points there’s a $50 fee to do so, and you’ll need to make the change at least 24 hours before departure.

Is this really that good of a deal?

Assuming you can find award availability, redeeming Virgin Atlantic points on All Nippon Airways really is a very good deal. Being able to fly from the mainland United States to Japan while redeeming just 52,500-60,000 points for a one-way business class ticket, or 72,500-85,000 points for a one-way first class ticket, is very good. It only gets better when there’s a transfer bonus Amex or Citi.

As a point of comparison, here’s how much other programs charge one-way for the same award:

• Air Canada Aeroplan: 75,000 points in business class, 105,000 points in first class
• Avianca LifeMiles: 85,000-90,000 miles in business class, 110,000-120,000 miles in first class
• United MileagePlus: 110,000 miles in business class, 220,000 miles in first class

Admittedly the math changes a bit if you’re connecting beyond Japan, and you should also factor in the fuel surcharges, which these other programs don’t pass on.

Is ANA first class really that good?

All Nippon Airways has new first class and business class products, which are available on select long haul routes. I reviewed both of these products, and found them to be spectacular:

• My review of ANA’s new first class (“The Suite”), which I rank as the world’s sixth best first class product
• My review of ANA’s new business class (“The Room”), which I rank as the world’s second best business class seat

ANA’s new hard products are truly industry leading, and when you combine it with the exceptional soft product — great service, food, and drinks — ANA is phenomenal.

Even if you end up in ANA’s old first class, you’ll still have a great experience. While the hard product isn’t quite as good, you’ll get the same great food, drinks, and service.

Bottom line

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club has some solid niche redemptions, and while they’ve been devalued a bit over the years, they still represent a good value. Personally I love being able to redeem Flying Club points for travel in ANA first & business class. While the award redemption rates are attractive, the catch is that award availability can also be tough to come by, so it takes some effort to find availability.

Flying Club is transfer partners with all major transferable points currencies, so if you’re planning a trip to Japan, this is a redemption option that’s worth keeping in mind. ANA’s first and business class products are excellent, which is the icing on the cake.

Is anyone looking forward to redeeming Virgin Atlantic points for travel on ANA?