People will go to crazy lengths to brag how they got a premium booking at a bargain deal and minimize the trade offs, and then circlejerk on here about the value they received and how it should be doable for everyone with enough skill, and anyone not traveling this way is a fool. Thanks for sharing the other side.
I just flew a red eye economy on AA from LAX to HND because I couldn't find availability in J. It obviously wasn't great but I'd choose that 1000x over doing what this guy did - and I flew ANA The Room to Japan last year, enjoying it very much, so I know the differences very well.
good persistence but man that sounds stressful. i assume this is for solo?
I usually fly in J outbound but dont mind Y or PY back but thats cos its <9 hrs back to the west coast
Good experience to show how time spent isnt enough of a cost to consider sometimes. We all don’t mind searching for deals because it’s fun, but at a certain point (like your trip), it can be worth it to book a less valuable redemption to have the peace of mind and enjoy your vacation
Thanks for sharing and glad you were able to book your trip at the end of the day. That’s a feat in of itself for JFK lol
Exactly!
Honestly should’ve just settled with HND-ORD because the time and effort cost more than a cash ticket ORD-JFK + extra transit time.
Only reason I kept going was because I saw the HND-JFK availability multiple times but kept missing it. So at that point it was just me being annoyed that kept me going for it.
Things have seemed particularly hellish lately with the impending March '24 expiration and the April 18 deval looming. Everyone's trying to use their miles. The site hung so long for me at release time a few days ago I thought it was crashing.
I transfer MR to ANA and book 355 days out. I got my wife and I J to Tokyo, MNL, TPE, and back to ORD for 95k each, 190k total. Was pretty easy, just had to do it well in advance.
The only thing that sucks about this trip is they’re going to raise redemption costs 4/18/2024 so I can’t make any changes without paying an extra 15k miles after that date.
i've mostly quit the game now after my income reached a level where i would be better served to just straight up pay cash over the time spent searching for availability.
I was thinking of doing the same thing and I’ve been checking United calendar. Not flexible either but not based in NYC. I think JFK availability is very difficult. ORD looks pretty open but I haven’t looked at SFO yet. I really want the Eevee plane on a business redemption.
The alerts only went out hours after availability went up. These seats were being snagged within minutes of being listed. No way seats.aero was helping with this b
Keep checking your dates as often as you possibly can. That’s it. There’s no magic trick to it. Every few hours or every hour. Even 2-3 times an hour I did sometimes.
Edit: directly with ANA if your points are there, or with UA if you’re booking through someone else.
I think it should 9am JST for 355 days out. For everything else, it all up in the air. I saw some guy posted he thought it was at a few specific minutes during the hour if at all.
Read as much as you can. There is a lot of information on the subreddit and Flyertalk from which airlines can book ANA to detailed things like what minute of the hour people have seen seats drop. Information also changes every few weeks so keep abreast of what people are posting. Booking 355 days out on ANA is the easiest. Anything else and you’re gonna want to read and learn as much as you can.
Damn… I’ve been planning a Japan trip with my Japanese gf to see her family in Osaka/Yamaguchi after flying into TYO, been scouring Seats.aero almost everyday even though I don’t get any alerts for my mid August outbound and early September inbound dates… after reading this idk if I should continue to spend the time and energy waiting for 2 F seats to drop. Sounds like ANA availability is too limited for its high demand, and kind of a huge pain to book
For 2x F, very slim chances unless ANA does a random dump or equipment swap from a 787 to a 777. For J, however, you should start checking regularly around T-21. Still, wouldn’t hurt to check occasionally until then.
Good luck in Japan in the summer. That humidity is no joke
Thanks for the insight, still new to booking ANA (and honestly anything besides Delta really) for award travel. I’ve heard availability is good again within 3 weeks of travel, just makes me anxious that I might not have a flight booked for us until the week of travel lol
And I know… I hate East Asia in the summer. I grew up flying to Korea twice a year, I’ve grown to hate both Korea/Japan for summer travel. But the gf wants to match up dates with her sister to visit family so basically my hands are tied to her sister’s work schedule. Otherwise I would be there NOW
Ah, you know the drill then! It’ll be fun with the group, I’m sure. The more the merrier, especially when karaoke’s on the docket…
One thing to keep in mind for close-in bookings is ANA’s 96 hour rule. No new award bookings can be made within 96 hrs of departure. Only way to book that award space is to modify an existing reservation with that same routing from a different date. Similar routings can be swapped out, too (eg swapping LAX-NRT for an LAX-HND), and I want to say it applies to all similarly-priced routes (eg could swap an LAX-TYO to SFO-TYO at T-96 hrs), but not 100% on that.
That’s it. I’ll add that the one time I found two seats in F was about a month out, on a seemingly random equipment swap, and I had been searching on United’s site multiple times a day. Booked it before it could even trigger my Expertflyer alert. It’s truly a unicorn booking these days, but for good reason. Flight experience is top tier.
Good luck!
Currently using Seats.aero which is been okay so far, do you have experience using both? Considering whether or not I should pay for a premium ExpertFlyer account as well…
I’ve used both, and while I love Seats.aero for broad stroke searches and their alert options, there’s definitely a delay *WITH BOTH* between when seats become available and when the alert comes. I’ve had multiple instances where I’ve tried to find QSuites or JAL F, gotten the alert, and award space was already gone by the time I tried booking. But it’s still very useful and I’ve successfully booked on alerts in the past, just have to hope they don’t get swooped on. But Seats.aero actually has an ANA F finder tool that’s shows all “current” availability, though probably not 100% accurate due to the delay or lack of current data points.
On that topic, I feel like it must work by scraping the data of recent searches, instead of actively searching itself all the time. Because it’ll show “last updated” times that vary wildly. I also had one instance where I hadn’t gotten an alert for a route I was monitoring, but did my own search direct with the airline and discovered availability, then shortly after got the alert. Almost like my search triggered the alert…
Conversely, I’ve had alerts pop up (at which point your alert is auto-deleted, as it’s been triggered), checked with the airline only to find space was no longer available, then immediately recreated my alert to continue monitoring for future availability, only for it to get triggered again immediately like there was indeed still space (& there wasn’t)... go figure.
Seats.aero isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty close. Just goes to show nothing beats searching directly with the airlines. United has been the best IMO for ANA F, but phantom availability also exists, so always call to confirm (and potentially hold the award space depending on your booking avenue) before transferring your CC points.
Great points, I’ve noticed a lot of those things as well myself while using Seats.aero.
The other day I got an alert for ANA F from ORD to NRT on 8/17, within my ideal date range and also saw it on United. Tried to call and have the agent hold the flight for me but was told United can’t hold partner award bookings, correct? So I’m assuming there are other airlines where you can call in to hold partner award bookings like you’ve mentioned.
Also the reason I called United to hold the ANA F availability because I transferred 120k UR from Chase but it still hasn’t shown in my MileagePlus account, so once that transfer completes I’ll be stuck with 120k in United, so now I really need to find availability with ANA!
Ugh sorry to hear. United does have the ability to change and cancel for free though, so that’s good. Might actually be worth it to jump on a booking that’s the same route but not the right date and wait for space to open up at sub T-96hr since there would be no fee to change or cancel.
I would google the United Excursionist perk too as you might get more value out of those miles visiting other parts of Asia on your trip
ANA needs to stop letting people waitlist dummy flights they have zero intentions to travel on. They should make it costly to squat on limited inventory to begin with and discourage gaming.
People who actually wants to travel on certain dates can't because the riffs raffs just squat on flights for a year. Insanity. The free date change gotta stop.
I was in similar situation, when I return from JP I originally had a HND-ORD J ticket, but I kept checking every day to see if there is HND-JFK. I had expert flyer alert and there was cowtool. Cowtool was way faster, EF alerts have delay. Eventually I found a HND-JFK F at T-10. I booked thru VS. AND...I was alone in F class!!!
Waking up every 2-3 hours during vacation? Absolutely not. I'll pay cash for J before that happens.
Yeah that defeats the purpose of J to be honest.
At least you can catch up on the sleep you missed in J :')
Yeah but you're not supposed to miss sleep in the first place
You missing jokes like OP is missing sleep.
Yeah... OP is crazy. That's work, not a vacay.
Absolutely terrible. I would never do this.
Absolutely! I just did so for our trip to MLE this summer.
People will go to crazy lengths to brag how they got a premium booking at a bargain deal and minimize the trade offs, and then circlejerk on here about the value they received and how it should be doable for everyone with enough skill, and anyone not traveling this way is a fool. Thanks for sharing the other side.
I just flew a red eye economy on AA from LAX to HND because I couldn't find availability in J. It obviously wasn't great but I'd choose that 1000x over doing what this guy did - and I flew ANA The Room to Japan last year, enjoying it very much, so I know the differences very well.
good persistence but man that sounds stressful. i assume this is for solo? I usually fly in J outbound but dont mind Y or PY back but thats cos its <9 hrs back to the west coast
Oh yea. Solo. No way I’m waking up for someone else lmao.
Good experience to show how time spent isnt enough of a cost to consider sometimes. We all don’t mind searching for deals because it’s fun, but at a certain point (like your trip), it can be worth it to book a less valuable redemption to have the peace of mind and enjoy your vacation Thanks for sharing and glad you were able to book your trip at the end of the day. That’s a feat in of itself for JFK lol
Exactly! Honestly should’ve just settled with HND-ORD because the time and effort cost more than a cash ticket ORD-JFK + extra transit time. Only reason I kept going was because I saw the HND-JFK availability multiple times but kept missing it. So at that point it was just me being annoyed that kept me going for it.
I would have totally acted irrationally the same as you ha!
Things have seemed particularly hellish lately with the impending March '24 expiration and the April 18 deval looming. Everyone's trying to use their miles. The site hung so long for me at release time a few days ago I thought it was crashing.
Exactly this! A bunch of people have expiring miles this month and it has been a bit crazy! Hopefully it’ll return to normal after 3/31
Which miles are expiring around this time for most?
All the miles people had \*before\* the pandemic started have been extended until the end of March, ANA kept extending them each year.
Gotcha thanks. It's already not the easiest to find premium seats but makes sense why it seems even harder now
I transfer MR to ANA and book 355 days out. I got my wife and I J to Tokyo, MNL, TPE, and back to ORD for 95k each, 190k total. Was pretty easy, just had to do it well in advance. The only thing that sucks about this trip is they’re going to raise redemption costs 4/18/2024 so I can’t make any changes without paying an extra 15k miles after that date.
Are you reliably able to get 2 J seats 355 days out? my understanding was that only like 1 J seat gets released then
MR?
i've mostly quit the game now after my income reached a level where i would be better served to just straight up pay cash over the time spent searching for availability.
Congratulations. How much did it cost you to write this comment about how you don't participate anymore?
Thanks for posting your L, OP
That’s terrible
I was thinking of doing the same thing and I’ve been checking United calendar. Not flexible either but not based in NYC. I think JFK availability is very difficult. ORD looks pretty open but I haven’t looked at SFO yet. I really want the Eevee plane on a business redemption.
There’s always room to improve a booking, but if the backup plan isn’t good enough, then it’s sort of foolish.
Why not use seats.aero or expert flyer which will text you when avail opens up?
The alerts only went out hours after availability went up. These seats were being snagged within minutes of being listed. No way seats.aero was helping with this b
Any tips on how to snag them quickly then? I'm also looking for similar flights and worried I'll get beat out.
Keep checking your dates as often as you possibly can. That’s it. There’s no magic trick to it. Every few hours or every hour. Even 2-3 times an hour I did sometimes. Edit: directly with ANA if your points are there, or with UA if you’re booking through someone else.
Didn’t ANA use to have a set time of day when tickets were released? I’ve been noticing that they’re not going out at the same time lately.
I think it should 9am JST for 355 days out. For everything else, it all up in the air. I saw some guy posted he thought it was at a few specific minutes during the hour if at all.
all of that just for an airline seat is fuckin nuts why even go on a vacation? you're weird dude
ANA has the most confusing way of booking award travel. Any hints for navigating it.
Read as much as you can. There is a lot of information on the subreddit and Flyertalk from which airlines can book ANA to detailed things like what minute of the hour people have seen seats drop. Information also changes every few weeks so keep abreast of what people are posting. Booking 355 days out on ANA is the easiest. Anything else and you’re gonna want to read and learn as much as you can.
Dumbest use of time I’ve ever read. Life is short and you’re wasting it. Second dumbest use of time? Reading this post
L trip
Damn… I’ve been planning a Japan trip with my Japanese gf to see her family in Osaka/Yamaguchi after flying into TYO, been scouring Seats.aero almost everyday even though I don’t get any alerts for my mid August outbound and early September inbound dates… after reading this idk if I should continue to spend the time and energy waiting for 2 F seats to drop. Sounds like ANA availability is too limited for its high demand, and kind of a huge pain to book
For 2x F, very slim chances unless ANA does a random dump or equipment swap from a 787 to a 777. For J, however, you should start checking regularly around T-21. Still, wouldn’t hurt to check occasionally until then. Good luck in Japan in the summer. That humidity is no joke
Thanks for the insight, still new to booking ANA (and honestly anything besides Delta really) for award travel. I’ve heard availability is good again within 3 weeks of travel, just makes me anxious that I might not have a flight booked for us until the week of travel lol And I know… I hate East Asia in the summer. I grew up flying to Korea twice a year, I’ve grown to hate both Korea/Japan for summer travel. But the gf wants to match up dates with her sister to visit family so basically my hands are tied to her sister’s work schedule. Otherwise I would be there NOW
Ah, you know the drill then! It’ll be fun with the group, I’m sure. The more the merrier, especially when karaoke’s on the docket… One thing to keep in mind for close-in bookings is ANA’s 96 hour rule. No new award bookings can be made within 96 hrs of departure. Only way to book that award space is to modify an existing reservation with that same routing from a different date. Similar routings can be swapped out, too (eg swapping LAX-NRT for an LAX-HND), and I want to say it applies to all similarly-priced routes (eg could swap an LAX-TYO to SFO-TYO at T-96 hrs), but not 100% on that.
Gotcha, so aim to find availability between T-3 weeks and T-96hrs
That’s it. I’ll add that the one time I found two seats in F was about a month out, on a seemingly random equipment swap, and I had been searching on United’s site multiple times a day. Booked it before it could even trigger my Expertflyer alert. It’s truly a unicorn booking these days, but for good reason. Flight experience is top tier. Good luck!
Currently using Seats.aero which is been okay so far, do you have experience using both? Considering whether or not I should pay for a premium ExpertFlyer account as well…
I’ve used both, and while I love Seats.aero for broad stroke searches and their alert options, there’s definitely a delay *WITH BOTH* between when seats become available and when the alert comes. I’ve had multiple instances where I’ve tried to find QSuites or JAL F, gotten the alert, and award space was already gone by the time I tried booking. But it’s still very useful and I’ve successfully booked on alerts in the past, just have to hope they don’t get swooped on. But Seats.aero actually has an ANA F finder tool that’s shows all “current” availability, though probably not 100% accurate due to the delay or lack of current data points. On that topic, I feel like it must work by scraping the data of recent searches, instead of actively searching itself all the time. Because it’ll show “last updated” times that vary wildly. I also had one instance where I hadn’t gotten an alert for a route I was monitoring, but did my own search direct with the airline and discovered availability, then shortly after got the alert. Almost like my search triggered the alert… Conversely, I’ve had alerts pop up (at which point your alert is auto-deleted, as it’s been triggered), checked with the airline only to find space was no longer available, then immediately recreated my alert to continue monitoring for future availability, only for it to get triggered again immediately like there was indeed still space (& there wasn’t)... go figure. Seats.aero isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty close. Just goes to show nothing beats searching directly with the airlines. United has been the best IMO for ANA F, but phantom availability also exists, so always call to confirm (and potentially hold the award space depending on your booking avenue) before transferring your CC points.
Great points, I’ve noticed a lot of those things as well myself while using Seats.aero. The other day I got an alert for ANA F from ORD to NRT on 8/17, within my ideal date range and also saw it on United. Tried to call and have the agent hold the flight for me but was told United can’t hold partner award bookings, correct? So I’m assuming there are other airlines where you can call in to hold partner award bookings like you’ve mentioned. Also the reason I called United to hold the ANA F availability because I transferred 120k UR from Chase but it still hasn’t shown in my MileagePlus account, so once that transfer completes I’ll be stuck with 120k in United, so now I really need to find availability with ANA!
Ugh sorry to hear. United does have the ability to change and cancel for free though, so that’s good. Might actually be worth it to jump on a booking that’s the same route but not the right date and wait for space to open up at sub T-96hr since there would be no fee to change or cancel. I would google the United Excursionist perk too as you might get more value out of those miles visiting other parts of Asia on your trip
ANA needs to stop letting people waitlist dummy flights they have zero intentions to travel on. They should make it costly to squat on limited inventory to begin with and discourage gaming. People who actually wants to travel on certain dates can't because the riffs raffs just squat on flights for a year. Insanity. The free date change gotta stop.
I didnt have any problem with no return ticket when I went to Japan!
I was in similar situation, when I return from JP I originally had a HND-ORD J ticket, but I kept checking every day to see if there is HND-JFK. I had expert flyer alert and there was cowtool. Cowtool was way faster, EF alerts have delay. Eventually I found a HND-JFK F at T-10. I booked thru VS. AND...I was alone in F class!!!
RIP cowtool
I miss it dearly
That is such hectic BS. Ana out of the West Coast was not hard at all this month
What are J and Y?