LD had to go back to China to take care of some business, so I booked a business class ticket. Happy wife, happy life~
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Routing
This time, LD was traveling mainly to handle some personal matters, so when I made the redemption I did not consider adding a stopover. Instead, I tried to minimize total travel time as much as possible. The final routing is shown above, and the detailed itinerary is shown below.
About YQ on ANA award tickets
Because of the 95,000-mile round-trip business class pricing between the U.S. and China, ANA is currently one of chanye’s favorite mileage programs (even though ANA’s chart before the devaluation was even better). That said, ANA award tickets often come with hefty YQ, especially on certain partners and routes, such as Asiana, Air China segments between China and Japan, and ANA’s own U.S.-Japan flights.
So for this redemption, I tried to avoid YQ-heavy options like ANA across the Pacific and CA between China and Japan, and instead chose ANA between China and Japan plus UA between the U.S. and Japan. As a result, YQ was reduced to only $4.
Choosing the business class product
United
UA recently announced its updated business class product, called Polaris, with rollout beginning on December 1. Unfortunately, both flights I booked were on the 744, which was not part of the first rollout wave. So the business class cabin on this 744 is the infamous backward-facing seat layout.
As you can see, this dreaded backward-facing configuration is even arranged 2-4-2 on the lower deck. I just couldn’t accept that, so I switched LD to an upper-deck seat, which should be a bit better.
ANA
There is not much to say about ANA’s Tokyo-Chengdu business class. It is operated by a 767, and the hard product is pretty unremarkable. But as long as you can sleep, it is fine. ANA’s cabin service should help make up for it.
Ticketing awards that include CA flights
If the itinerary includes Air China (CA), you usually cannot ticket it directly on ANA’s website and will keep getting an error message. In that case, you have to call ANA and have the ticket issued over the phone. One quick note: if possible, just call ANA’s Japan service center directly. They offer English service, and reportedly the Japan desk has greater ticketing authority, so the odds of getting it issued are better.
In my case, chanye was feeling lazy and simply chose not to book any CA flights, which made it possible to issue the ticket online.
Value
As for how much value I got from these miles, the Google Flights search result below provides a useful reference.
What chanye wants to say here is that with oil prices this low, economy class fares are generally pretty cheap. That means redeeming miles for economy class often does not produce especially high value. Of course, if you make good use of a STOP OVER, the value can still be decent. Still, the best use of miles is generally for premium cabins. That is especially true for relatively cheap premium-cabin awards like ANA’s.
Related articles
How to reduce fuel surcharges on ANA awards - 2015 ANA Mileage Club Redemption Guide (4) – What You Need to Know About YQ
chanye’s experience redeeming ANA award tickets during the summer - My Summer Trip Back to China: Redeeming ANA Miles
ymlulu’s experience redeeming ANA award tickets during the summer - Booking a U.S.-China Business Class Award with ANA Miles: A Real Example