Business Sweet Spots: ANA Business and First Class from the US to Tokyo from 37,500 Miles
Available to redeem with Amex, Capital One, Citi, Chase, and Bilt points through Virgin Atlantic
ANA’s business and first class can be booked through Virgin Atlantic. Widely considered one of the best deals in points, and regularly available from the continental US at less than 40,000 points one way and about $250 in fees, this deal requires quite a bit of hoop jumping to accomplish: searching intensely for availability, setting alerts, and calling to book is required.
If the fees seem a little high, they are compared to other programs that can book ANA flights. Other programs do not pass on the fuel surcharges, but cost tens of thousands of points more. To compare how good of a deal this is to other programs, United charges 110,000 miles in business class and 242,000 in first class, Air Canada charges 75,000 for business and also requires phone booking with harder to reach agents. Lifemiles charges 120,000 points for first class and similarly blocks online redemption of business class, though Lifemiles from Hawaii to Tokyo in first class can be booked relatively cheap and online - for 66,000 points. ANA has similar pricing to Virgin Atlantic, but requires round trip booking, which adds more complexity than is covered here.
Price Chart & Available Airports
| Region | Business Class Pricing | First Class Pricing | The Room? |
|---|---|---|---|
| East Coast & Central US New York-JFK, Washington DC-IAD, Chicago-ORD, Houston-IAH |
60,000 miles ~46,000 miles with 30% transfer bonus |
85,000 miles ~66,000 miles with 30% transfer bonus |
JFK always ORD on certain days |
| West Coast Seattle-SEA, Los Angeles-LAX, San Francisco-SFO |
52,500 miles ~41,000 miles with 30% transfer bonus |
72,500 miles ~56,000 miles with 30% transfer bonus |
SFO on certain days |
| Hawaii Honolulu-HNL |
37,500 miles ~29,000 miles with 30% transfer bonus |
57,500 miles ~45,000 miles with 30% transfer bonus |
No, A380 service |
All displayed prices are one-way prices. The price will also include significant taxes and fees. At the moment, the taxes and fees one way are about $250.
Hawaii optimization: Note that the Lifemiles price for ANA first between Honolulu and Tokyo is 66,000 miles, plus only ~$50 in fees. In this case, you can simply book online on the Lifemiles site if you prefer the marginally higher points price for the lower fees. If there is a Lifemiles transfer bonus, typically 15%, the points price of the two programs is equal. Lifemiles does have stricter cancellation policies, whereas Virgin Atlantic only charges a $50 change or cancel fee.
Finding ANA taxes and fees: These taxes and fees come from the fuel surcharge ANA adds to its tickets, including in cash, which Virgin Atlantic then passes onto you, the customer. If you’d like to figure out ahead of time what this sum might be, head to the ITA Matrix, find your one-way itinerary, and check the price breakdown of your flight, looking for ‘Carrier-imposed surcharge (YQ).’ For a ticket originating in the US, other fees included in the price are the $5.60 US Security Fee and $22.20 US Transportation Tax, which are not variable and will always be included. This brings the current fee to $249.80. The largest and most variable part of the fee will always be the YQ, so focus on finding that in the price breakdown for an accurate idea of the additional fee.
As mentioned above, other airlines offering these tickets will not pass on this fee to you, but will cost about 40,000 to 165,000 more points.
Nonstops only: It is only possible to book nonstop ANA flights on Virgin Atlantic, meaning you cannot buy a connecting flight. This deal is only available from the airports listed in the above price chart. You can book a repositioning flight once you have secured your flight via Virgin Atlantic, but this is a separate expense. Make sure to add enough buffer on repositioning flights.
Cash Comparison
Two one-way flights will typically be more expensive than a round trip, so this comparison will use half the price of round trip flights.
East coast business class typically costs between $5,000 and $10,000 round trip, and first class typically costs ~$25,000.
Estimating the minimum price to be $2,500 for a one way, and considering the worst case of no transfer bonus, the cents per point value would be $2,500 - $250 fees = $2,250 / 60,000 transferred points = 3.75 cents per point. In the best case scenario, of a $4,000 ticket price and a transfer bonus, the cents per point value would be $4,000 - $250 fees = $3,750 / 46,000 transferred points = 8.1 cents per point.
First class is even more extreme. With about a $11,000 sticker price, the cents per point value would be $11,000 - $250 fees = $10,750 / 85,000 transferred points = 12.6 cents per point. With the 30% transfer bonus, this jumps to $11,000 - $250 fees = $10,750 / 66,000 transferred points = 16.2 cents per point.
West coast pricing is not radically different from east coast pricing, though redemption price is lower. The minimum cents per point for this deal is thus about 4 cents a point. After booking, feel free to look at the pricing on your dates to determine your personal CPP - or just be happy you booked business or first class!
Business and First Class Experience on ANA
ANA has several different types of business and first class seats on their planes. Their most popular product, The Room business class and The Suite first class, are only found on a few planes. All JFK routes fly the new product, and at the moment, some of the ORD and SFO routes do too.
ANA First and Business on A380 Service to Honolulu, Photo Courtesy of ANA
Lounge access: Each business and first class ticket includes lounge access. Originating in the US, the United-operated Polaris lounges in ORD, IAD, IAH, LAX, and SFO are a highlight. LAX also has Star Alliance Business and First Class Lounge, and HNL has an ANA Lounge. SEA and JFK provide access to smaller lounges, and there are no other Star Alliance lounges in the terminal ANA flies out of. At HND and NRT, you can access ANA-operated lounges with your ticket.
Identifying seat type: You can reference the price chart above for if your flight may have The Room/The Suite, and you can confirm with either Google Flights or ANA's site. Search your flight, one way and in business class, on Google Flights. If you see too many results, filter by nonstop flights. Find your exact flight - by flight number or departure time - and click through to select the flight. Check your flight's attributes. If the flight lists an individual suite, you'll be flying on ANA's newer planes equipped with 'The Room' and 'The Suite'.
If you're still unsure whether your flight has 'The Room/The Suite,' you can also check the ANA site, searching by business class or first class.
Finding Availability
Great deal, right? Everyone else thinks so, and availability is tough to find. Manual searching will produce few results. If you’d like to start there, the best airlines to search with are United Airlines and Virgin Australia. They are approximately equal in their effectiveness, and anecdotally, I’ve seen the availability in Virgin Australia match better.
To search on United, search one-way, booking with miles, and flexible dates to bring up a calendar view. Filter to business or first.
Next, you‘ll see a calendar view of prices. Look for 110k for business, or 242k for first class - this is United’s standard pricing for partner flights between these regions. You can see that in this example, only one day is showing the 110k pricing. When looking for availability, it will be this sparse without continuous monitoring.
Once you find a flight operated by ANA that fits your travel needs, follow the instructions below to call them.
If this manual searching is too tiresome or ineffective, a Seats.aero subscription and alerts setting is the most effective way to find seats. You should set your alert for a wider date range, and if using a pro subscription, filter to direct flights on NH (ANA).
Setting Alerts
If in your first searches you don’t see availability, you’ll need to set alerts to effectively find it. Some blogs like to say ‘Just check United to find availability!’ and act as if that is enough to book round trip business class for points prices lower than economy. At the end of the day, most people succeeding in finding ANA business and first are doing so with alerts. The two main options are PointsYeah and Seats.aero, and depending on the timeframe, you may need to use their paid services.
To set alerts on Seats.aero, search on Star Alliance programs, including United, Virgin Australia (different than Virgin Atlantic), and SAS EuroBonus. Select each airport you’re willing to fly from, and set alerts both ways. As you can see, date range and any date options are only for pro users.
To minimize the number of false alerts, search with only direct flight and NH (ANA) as the operating carrier. These option is only a feature for Pro members. The option to create a continuous alert is also only for Pro members, but this option saves you from recreating alerts. Continuous alerts only alert on email and app notifications, and not SMS.
PointsYeah allows a few alerts to be set on a specific route with a shorter timeframe. Set an alert for your preferred airports, nonstop only, searching Virgin Australia and United. United has many 200k flights available, which are not available via Virgin Atlantic or on ANA. To search for business, set a maximum price of 120,000 points. To search first, change the ‘Business & First’ toggle to ‘First.’
Seats.aero also has a special page for finding ANA first availability - the Seats.aero ANA First Class Finder. Monitoring this page regularly can help you find first class availability.
Booking through Virgin Atlantic
Once you've confirmed availability or received an alert, work quickly to call and reserve your seats.
Check number of seats! Seats.aero and PointsYeah will display the number of seats remaining, but if you’re booking for more people than there are seats available, you won’t be able to book. I would recommend booking the seats that are available and working to find other seats for the remaining members of your party, but that is a personal decision.
Check the dates! Virgin Atlantic allows booking 330 days out. Some programs show availability beyond that timeframe, so ensure the seat you found is within the 330 day window.
- Call Virgin Atlantic, whose booking phone number is currently 800-862-8621. Verify the phone number on Virgin Atlantic's site.
- Open up your bank’s page and be ready to transfer points. Know how many points you'll need to transfer, looking at the above chart, and factor in any transfer bonuses. Check out our transfer guide if you'd like a refresher, and our active transfer bonus page. Note that point transfers are always one-way.
- Once you're connected to an agent, say you’d like to book ANA business or first class, and the details of the flight: departure and arrival airports, flight number, and date.
- As they’re checking, tell them you’re ready to transfer the points to your account when they confirm availability. Once they do, make the transfer, which will appear within a minute, and they’ll make the booking.
After this, if you’d like to change your flight after the 24 hour free change period, Virgin Atlantic charges a $100 fee.