All Nippon Airways – no UK/EU availability anymore

[Stephen]

Hello,

I fortunately managed to book a few seats with ANA using Virgin points in April 2023.

I’ve been trying to find some availability for 2024 using United.com and Aeroplan, from UK or Europe to Tokyo but it seems like the availability has completely disappeared.

Has anyone had any luck recently?

Thanks

[pointsfan]

I’m hoping to turn Amex points into Virgin Points to use with ANA.

Hopefully someone can answer Stephens question as I was also having problems seeing any ANA flight availability.

[meta]

Only one ticket available at most per flight. The availability is there, but people book via Star Alliance at T-355 whereas Virgin only releases at T-330. If you don’t have access to *A miles, you can snag via Virgin at last minute usually from 10 days to 1 week before and you need to be quick when you spot them as they are usually gone within an hour or so.

This has been discussed several times on this forum, so it pays to do a bit of Google search.

[Bob]

i have booked recently, seats were released exactly 14 days out for HND – LHR F/J

[JonathanC]

Although this one of the sweet spots of VS FC redemptions, it’s very frustrating that being able to secure reward seats on these flights is extremely difficult, nearly impossible at peak times of the year for Japan’s holiday season.

Hopefully these problems might become looked at in the future by Shai and his team

[meta]

Yes, probably they will be looked at as in removed given competing alliances.

[cin3]

Bob wrote:

i have booked recently, seats were released exactly 14 days out for HND – LHR F/J

Are you saying this happens regularly or just as a one off?

[Bob]

cin3 wrote:

Bob wrote:

i have booked recently, seats were released exactly 14 days out for HND – LHR F/J

Are you saying this happens regularly or just as a one off?

I flew three times across Sept – Oct and this is what happened although it only worked out as I had expert flyer alerts. Now that they have stopped it’s difficult to say to be honest. I have read elsewhere that many believe they only release 1 F and 2 J seats for redemptions and that last min availability is due to cancellations and seats opening up.