This article is reposted from the WeChat public account of a reader in our WeChat group, Lazy 33’s Food, Travel, and Fun. Original link. Some subheadings were added by editor ymlulu.

Background

I went to Japan again this spring break and used the same approach as before to book ANA business class round-trip awards. So it’s time to update this guide. If anything below is unclear, you can also refer to our previous post:

With last year’s experience under my belt, I felt much more confident this time. Last year I even booked a Delta economy ticket as a backup; this year I skipped the backup plan entirely and just went all-in on booking ANA award space.

Because AC blocks U.S.-Japan routes, ANA is still the best option for me. Spring break is still considered off-peak season, so business class round-trip pricing was only 75k miles (it increased starting 4/18; I booked before the devaluation), with YQ of about $600 per person. It also has to be booked as a round-trip.

ANA releases U.S.-Japan business class award space about a year in advance. Based on what I’ve observed, they seem to release only two seats at that point, but starting about three weeks before departure, more seats tend to appear around 9 AM PST each day.

This time, I only started reserving waitlists a little over two months in advance. MR transfers to ANA can take up to 4 days, but in practice the points usually posted in about 1-2 business days. We needed 75k * 3 miles for three people. You need to have enough miles in your account to place a waitlist, but the miles are not deducted until ticketing, so one set of miles is enough to place multiple waitlists.

If your group is small (<=2) and your dates are fairly flexible (+/-3 days), you probably don’t need to do any of this award hunting. You can often just book directly on the website close to departure; based on current release patterns, it’s still fairly easy.

How It Works

Let me explain the logic behind this method. If you don’t care about the mechanics, you can just follow the steps below.

ANA award tickets allow date changes, but nothing else can be changed (cabin, departure/arrival airports, nonstop vs. connecting, etc.), and the dates can be up to one year apart. To issue the ticket, every segment in the itinerary must clear the waitlist. As mentioned above, ANA starts releasing seats continuously about three weeks before departure, but the waitlist expires two weeks before the outbound departure date, no matter when the return is.

For example, say your itinerary is 4/8-4/20. Three weeks before departure, on 3/18, ANA may start releasing the 4/8 outbound segment. But the 4/20 return segment may not start opening until 3/30. The entire itinerary, however, would expire on 3/25. So if the return has not cleared by 3/25, the whole itinerary gets canceled. Since the return space only starts appearing on 3/30, it obviously won’t have cleared by 3/25, so this would almost certainly fail. The solution is to use a return date that has already cleared during the window between the outbound clearing and 3/25, issue the ticket first with that cleared return, and then later change just the return date. In this process, the return waitlist mainly serves as an alert.

Could someone else grab the seat before you do? I think the odds are low. If my waitlist has cleared, that means ANA Diamond, Platinum, and Gold members would already have cleared ahead of me, so it makes little sense for them to suddenly show up behind me or between my two reservations. Also, since I only placed these waitlists shortly before travel, the only real risk is that another basic member joined the same-date waitlist between the time I placed my waitlist and the time I ticketed. Otherwise, the waitlist that cleared for me should still end up back in my hands.

Steps

Here are the specific steps I used. My final destination this year was Osaka Itami Airport (ITM), which required a connection in Tokyo.

0) I wanted to depart between 4/3 and 4/6, and return between 4/14 and 4/17.

1) Set up the following waitlists. Outbound flights are all SEA-ITM/KIX, and return flights are all ITM/KIX-SEA:

A: 4/3-4/5;

B: 4/4-4/6;

C: 4/5-4/7;

D: 4/6-4/8;

E: 4/6-4/9;

F: 4/6-4/10;

G: 4/6-4/11;

H: 4/6-4/12;

I: 4/6-4/13; (continue until you cover your latest acceptable departure date + one week; in my example, that was 4/6 + one week = 4/14)

2) Then set up the following reverse waitlists. Outbound flights are all ITM/KIX-SEA, and return flights are all SEA-ITM/KIX:

J: 4/14-4/16

K: 4/15-4/17

L: 4/16-4/18

M: 4/17-4/19 (you only need the outbound segment here to cover all acceptable return dates; in my example, that was 4/14-4/17)

3) Then just wait. Three weeks before 4/3 is 3/13, so starting then, check your email every morning around 9 AM. The email subject for a cleared waitlist is: [From ANA] Your waitlisted seat is now available

4) In step 1), once any outbound and any return both clear, you can issue the ticket. In my case, that was the 4/3 outbound in reservation A and the 4/9 return in reservation E. At that point, call ANA and change the return in reservation A to 4/9, then cancel reservation E (there is a small chance someone else could grab it here; see the discussion above). Then ask the agent to confirm the waitlist status for the 4/9 return in reservation A. Once it’s available, you can ticket it. Have your credit card ready.

5) Keep waiting for the return award space in step 2) to clear.

6) Once the return waitlist clears—for example, in my case, reservation M for 4/17 cleared—call ANA again and change the return date in reservation A to 4/17, then cancel reservation M (again, there is a small chance someone else could grab it; see the discussion above). Then ask the agent to confirm the waitlist status for the 4/17 return in reservation A. Once it’s available, you can ticket it. Again, have your credit card ready. At that point, the entire itinerary is locked in on the dates you actually wanted.

Experience

Here are a few takeaways from this year’s booking process:

- The updated method this year basically eliminates the need to keep manually hunting for seats. Most of the effort goes into creating multiple reservations, making two phone calls, and checking email. That’s about it.

- Right now, ANA is releasing a lot of business class space only to its own program, so booking directly through ANA gives you much better access to award inventory.

- ANA’s North America call center can have very long hold times. With this updated method, though, you can afford to be a bit more relaxed about when you ticket. By afternoon, you can also call the Japan or China call centers, which tends to go much more smoothly.

  • North America customer service: 800-235-9262
  • China customer service: +86-10-8559-9292
  • Japan customer service: +81-36741-1120

- For families of more than 2 people, first class is basically unrealistic. I’d say getting 2 first class seats is close to the limit. In business class, each additional seat makes things exponentially harder. If you need more than 4 seats, don’t expect everyone to fly business.

- The most nerve-wracking part is the period after the outbound clears and before you’re able to issue the ticket, which is at most about 1 week. After all, once you get past step 4 above, your outbound is already fixed, and the worst-case scenario is that your return date ends up less than ideal.

- So if you want to improve your odds, consider splitting family members into separate reservations. For example, after step 4, the tickets for our family of three might have ended up as 4/3 - 4/9, 4/3 - 4/5, and 4/3 - 4/8. Of course, that increases the workload significantly.

Good luck booking your award seats!

NH117/NH118 Seat Selection Tips

Here are some seat selection suggestions, as shown above.

First, I recommend choosing one of the first five rows. Passengers in the back five rows board through the same door as economy passengers, so there’s more foot traffic in the aisle and it’s less convenient. Those rows are also closer to economy, so they tend to be a bit noisier.

My child’s favorite seats are the window seats. Seat A gets less disturbance from aisle traffic than seat C. That said, business class is generally very quiet, and my child slept soundly either way. In the center section, seat F is the best choice because it has a huge amount of space. Seats D and G have the least space in the whole business class cabin. The divider between D and G cannot be lowered, so those seats are less convenient if you’re traveling with a child. At the same time, you can still occasionally see each other, so privacy is also not ideal.

About the Author

This article is reposted from the WeChat public account “Lazy 33’s Food, Travel, and Fun,” run by a reader from our WeChat group. The account features original, high-quality articles, and interested readers are welcome to follow it.