Booking ANA First Class With Virgin Atlantic Miles | One Mile at a Time

While most of us probably aren't going to be traveling anytime soon, there's nothing wrong with starting to think about the award redemptions you're most excited about in the future, or even planning some award travel way in advance.

In this post I wanted to take an in-depth look at what I consider to be one of the best sweet spot award redemptions, which involves redeeming Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles on All Nippon Airways (ANA).

I'm writing about this in particular because I see a good amount of award availability at the moment, not to mention that ANA recently introduced new first & business class products.

Let's talk about how to earn Virgin Atlantic miles, how Virgin Atlantic redemptions on ANA work, and then talk about whether this is actually that good of a deal.

How to earn Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles

If you don't currently have Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles, don't worry, as there are lots of ways to earn them with transferrable points currencies:

If you really want to maximize value, we sometimes see transfer bonuses from Amex Membership Rewards and Citi ThankYou to Virgin Atlantic (typically in the range of 25-30%), which can make your transferrable points go even further.

Redeeming Virgin Atlantic miles on ANA is an awesome value

Redeeming Virgin Atlantic miles on All Nippon Airways

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

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

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club has a zone based award chart for travel on ANA, and the redemption rates are as follows (these prices are roundtrip - one-way awards aren't possible):

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. While one-way awards aren't possible, open jaws are, so you could fly from one US airport to Tokyo, and then return from Tokyo to another US airport.

I want to specifically call out that:

t
• Business class awards between the US mainland or Europe and Japan cost 90,000-95,000 miles
t
• First class awards between the US mainland or Europe and Japan cost 110,000-120,000 miles

While you can't search or book ANA awards using Virgin Atlantic miles through Virgin Atlantic's website, they should generally have access to the same award availability as all of ANA's other partner airlines.

Perhaps the easiest website to use for searching availability is United's, though if you prefer you can use ANA's website, Aeroplan's website, etc.

As far as mainland US gateways go, in general you'll find:

t
• There's the most first class award availability out of Chicago, Houston, and Washington
t
• There's less first class award availability out of Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco, though there's the benefit of ANA having their new first & business class on the New York route (more on that below)

Let me emphasize that at the moment I see tons of award availability in ANA first class, especially for travel this fall and winter (all the way through early March 2021):

t
• I see at least one and sometimes two first class award seats available per flight out of most US gateways (including out of New York, which features ANA's new first & business class cabins)
t
• I see three first class award seats per flight out of Chicago for many dates, which is exceptionally rare

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 them 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.

ANA's new 777 business class

Virgin Atlantic passes on whatever carrier imposed surcharges ANA would have on revenue tickets. The easiest way to look these up is through ITA Matrix - just look up the itinerary there for the cabin you're traveling in, and expect to pay everything except the base fare.

For example, here are ANA's current fees for a roundtrip first class ticket from Chicago to Tokyo:

As you can see, you could expect to pay a total of $234.65 per passenger, $174 of which would be carrier imposed surcharges (with the rest being taxes and fees). That's a small price to pay for an amazing experience.

ANA's new 777 business class

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, Chase, and Citi, to Virgin Atlantic, are all instant.

ANA's new 777 first class

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

Yes, this really is a spectacularly good deal, in my opinion. Booking these awards for 110,000-120,000 miles in first class roundtrip is exceptional, and it only gets better when there's a transfer bonus from Amex or Citi.

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

t
• Air Canada Aeroplan: 105,000 miles
t
• Avianca LifeMiles: 90,000 miles
t
• United MileagePlus: 110,000 miles

ANA's new 777 first class

Is ANA first class really that good?

All Nippon Airways recently introduced new first class and business class products, which so far are available on their routes to New York JFK, London Heathrow, and Frankfurt. We'll have to see how that evolves, given everything going on right now.

I recently reviewed both of these products, and found them to be spectacular:

Their 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.

ANA's new first class

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.

ANA's old first class

ANA's old first class

Bottom line

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club has some incredible niche redemptions, and arguably the single best value is redeeming those miles for travel in ANA first class.

Flying Club is transfer partners with several major transferable points currencies, so if you're planning a trip to Japan, this is pretty tough to beat. That's particularly true with ANA introducing new first and business class products, and also when you consider that they have pretty good award availability at the moment.