Whether you’re flying Singapore Airlines first class or Cathay Pacific first class, many Asian carriers have developed a reputation for world-class service. When you fly ANA, not only will you enjoy the privacy and comfort of your first class suite, but you’ll experience unbelievable service.
With several routes to the U.S., a competitive award chart, and plenty of partner booking options, let’s dive into ANA first class.
A Look Inside ANA First Class
ANA A380 First Class Seat. Image Credit: Cherag DubashANA is widely considered to be one of the best airlines in the world, and their first class experience really drives that point home.
Departing from Tokyo (NRT only), you’ll step into luxury from the moment you enter the airport thanks to the ANA Suite Check-In in Terminal 1.
ANA’s concierge staff will help make the check-in process a quick and painless process. You can either check in at the counter, or wait comfortably on one of the check-in area sofas.
You will be taken care of when checking in to your ANA first class flight at Narita Airport in Terminal 1. Image Credit: ANAOnce you’re finished checking in, you’ll be off to security. While this is probably one of the least enjoyable experiences for most travelers, you’ll be whisked through priority security in no time.
At this point, you might rush to your gate — but hopefully you’ve left enough time to relax in the ANA Suite Lounge, which is available at both Narita and Haneda.
It’s here where ANA’s amazing service really starts to shine. During your stay, you can enjoy a great meal and refresh in one of the fully-stocked shower rooms. ANA really makes an effort to ensure the wait as well as the flight is an experience to remember!
Once onboard the ANA Boeing 777-300ER, you’ll see you a large rectangular first class suite waiting for you. Unlike some first class suites, these seats do not have doors that close you off from the rest of the cabin. But they provide more than enough privacy (especially the window seats).
Another difference you’ll notice is that the 2 middle seats also have tons of privacy. Even if you lower the divider, you still have to lean forward to talk to the person next to you.
ANA’s Samsonite amenity kits in first class make for a great souvenir. Image Credit: Cherag DubashNo first class experience wouldn’t be complete without pajamas and an amenity kit. ANA first class amenity kits are provided by Samsonite (departing from Tokyo) or Rimowa (departing to Tokyo) and have everything you need to refresh on a long flight.
ANA’s New First Class
ANA New 777 The Suite First Class Cabin. Image Credit: ANAANA is moving forward with their epic refurbishment of their 777-300ERs. Known for offering their “flagship” premium products, the new ANA 777-300ER will be arguably solidify its place in the best international first class products in the world. Here’s what new.
ANA’s new first class will consist of enclosed suites in a 1-2-1 configuration, each complete with sliding doors. Also, the seats are ridiculously sleek yet minimalist. The in-flight monitor will measure an astonishing 43 inches, which would make it the largest personal television on a commercial airline in the world. Also, it will be a 4K monitor, the first of its kind on an airline.
Arranged in 2 rows with a 1-2-1 configuration, the 8-suite cabin will present an epic “East Meets West” collaboration between architect Kengo Kuma and British design firm Acumen Design Associates. The biggest gripe of ANA’s first class “The Square” had long been the closed-off nature of the hard product, which can make talking to your seatmate difficult if you’re traveling together.
ANA New 777 The Suite First Class. Image Credit: ANAANA’s response to this is one of the most epic in the history of commercial aviation, and this will undoubtedly catapult the first class experience to a whole new level (not that it wasn’t already a top-tier product).
You can find the new ANA 777 First Class on:
- Tokyo-Haneda (HND) – London-Heathrow (LHR) on NH 211/212
- Tokyo-Haneda/Narita (HND/NRT) – New York City (JFK) starting in winter 2019
- Tokyo-Haneda (HND) – Frankfurt (FRA) starting in winter 2019
How to Fly ANA First Class Using Points
ANA is a member of Star Alliance, which is the world’s largest airline alliance — so you’ll have plenty of options for booking ANA first class.
ANA Mileage Club
ANA Mileage Club provides some great first class redemptions to Japan. Image Credit: ANAThe most straightforward way to book first class is through ANA’s own Mileage Club program. The entire booking process can be taken care of online. This might be the best way to book ANA business and first class, because ANA keeps a decent amount of award availability reserved for ANA Mileage Club members only.
Here are the steps to booking ANA first class:
- Visit ANA’s website
- Select “ANA Mileage Club”
- Select “International” then “Award Reservation”
- Log in to your account
- Enter your desired route and dates
- Select “First Class”
- Select your flights
Hot Tip: Use our Transfer Partner Calculator to quickly determine how many miles you’ll get for transferring between programs.
There are a few important caveats to remember when booking with ANA Mileage Club. First, you can only book awards for yourself and your family members.
Second, ANA has low, regular, and high seasons for awards. Stick to the low and regular seasons for your award bookings to get the most bang for your buck.
The mileage cost of first class awards is actually the same for the low and regular seasons, so there are plenty of travel dates from which to choose.
Make sure award space is available before you transfer miles to your ANA Mileage Club account. If you see the “Waitlist” label, think twice before transferring Amex Membership Rewards points. Image Credit: ANAThird, ANA allows you to waitlist award bookings. This can be a nice feature, but there’s no guarantee you will move off the waitlist (especially on popular travel dates). For this reason, it’s important to check whether your selection is actually putting you on the waitlist.
Fortunately, it’s clear when you are waitlisting an award. Just make sure you confirm before moving forward!
Speaking of the waitlisted flight pictured above, you’ll notice the route is from Chicago to Sydney, Australia connecting in Tokyo.
ANA not only allows you to transit a third region on your way to a destination, but they allow you to book a stopover. This means you could visit Tokyo for a bit before continuing on to Australia.
If you need some more miles in your Mileage Club account, you can transfer Membership Rewards.
Membership Rewards generally take about 2 to 3 days to transfer. Keep this in mind before transferring, as award space isn’t guaranteed to be available if you wait.
Hot Tip: Check out other great ways to redeem with ANA Mileage Club.
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
With the recent removal of Korean Air as a Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partner, it’s now extremely difficult to find sweet spot awards to Asia.
Luckily, Virgin Atlantic is an amazing transfer partner of all major flexible award points. This is absolutely crucial for Virgin Atlantic Flying Club because they offer unbeatable first class award redemption rates on ANA to Japan.
The following chart is the ANA Award Chart using Virgin Points:
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club provides some stunning sweet spots to Japan on ANA. Image Credit: Virgin AtlanticThe above chart shows the round-trip cost in Virgin Points, though one-way trips are now allowed at half of the round-trip cost.
Here are some great example flights you can take:
- New York City (JFK) – Tokyo (NRT/HND) nonstop round-trip for 120,000 Virgin Points + ~$300 in taxes and fees in ANA first class
- Houston (IAH) – Tokyo (NRT) nonstop round-trip for 120,000 Virgin Points + ~$300 in taxes and fees in ANA first class
- Chicago O’Hare (ORD) – Tokyo (NRT/HND) nonstop round-trip for 120,000 Virgin Points + ~$300 in taxes and fees in ANA first class
- Los Angeles (LAX) – Tokyo (NRT/HND) nonstop round-trip for 110,000 Virgin Points + ~$300 in taxes and fees in ANA first class
These redemptions are already amazing, as ANA charges anywhere from 150,000-165,000 miles for round-trip first class trips and Virgin charges 110,000-120,000 miles.
To make things even better, Citi and American Express often run huge transfer bonuses of 25%-30% to top off your miles even more! If you line everything up correctly, you can fly from the West Coast to Japan in ANA first class round-trip for 85,000 points!
One significant drawback of Virgin Atlantic vs. ANA is that Virgin Atlantic will only be able to reserve award seats that are released to partners. Since ANA has access to much more award inventory, you’ll need to plan further in advance or be more flexible.
Here’s how to book ANA first class with Virgin Atlantic (do not transfer your points yet):
- Visit United or Aeroplan.
- Log into your Aeroplan or United account.
- For Aeroplan: Under “Use Your Miles” select “Travel.” Select your travel dates, cities, and business/first class.
- For United: Click round-trip, check “Book with miles,” and select your travel dates, cities, and first class.
- Find your desired flight in ANA first class.
- Call Virgin Atlantic at 1-800-365-9500 to hold your award booking for 24 hours.
- Transfer your points.
- If transferring from Chase, you will not be able to transfer points to another person unless they share the same address as you.
- If transferring from Citi and the Virgin and Citi names don’t match, you will need to use “Points Sharing” to transfer to a Citi account with the same name as on the Virgin Atlantic account. You will then need to transfer from Citi to Virgin Atlantic.
- If transferring from American Express, the names must match the name on the Virgin Atlantic account.
- If transferring from Marriott, the names don’t need to match. Keep in mind that if this policy changes in the future, you can transfer up to 50,000 Marriott points to other accounts to get around this rule.
- Call Virgin Atlantic at 1-800-365-9500 to confirm your booking once you have enough points and pay for taxes and fees.
- Write down the ANA Record Locator and use it to select your seats.
- Navigate to ANA’s Manage Reservation Page. Enter your Record Locator and First/Last Name. If you have a middle name on your Virgin Atlantic account, you must type it after your first name without spaces.
- For example: John Steven Doe will be First Name: JohnSteven and Last Name: Doe.
- You will be prompted to log in with your ANA Number and Password.
- Click “Service” on the right tab to select your seats and add meal preferences.
The last thing you need to know is about transfer times: Chase and Citi transfer instantly, AmEx takes 2-3 business days, and Marriott can take as long as AmEx. Make sure you know this when you’re planning award holds! If your award hold is lost, there’s no guarantee the seats will still be there if you try again.
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
Unlike when booking with ANA Mileage Club miles, to use Singapore KrisFlyer miles you have to call to book ANA flights.
Here’s what you need to know.
- Visit Air Canada’s Aeroplan site
- Log in to your Aeroplan account (you’ll need your account number)
- Under “Use Your Miles” select “Travel”
- Select your travel dates, cities, and class of service
- Find your desired flight — make sure it’s ANA first class
- Call Singapore Airlines to complete the booking (800-742-3333)
- Write down the ANA Record Locator and use it to select your seats
- Navigate to ANA’s Manage Reservation Page. Enter your Record Locator and First/Last Name. If you have a middle name on your Virgin Atlantic account, you must type it after your first name without spaces.
- John Steven Doe will be First Name: JohnSteven and Last Name: Doe
- You will be prompted to log in with your ANA Number and Password
- Click “Service” on the right hand tab to select your seats and add meal preferences
Booking through Singapore KrisFlyer allows you to book a one-way first class award on ANA if that’s all you need.
A big benefit to booking this way is that it allows you to leverage Chase Ultimate Rewards and Citi ThankYou Points since Singapore Airlines is a partner. Transfers to the KrisFlyer program generally take up to 24 hours; transfers from Citi generally take 1-2 days.
Hot Tip: Check out other great ways to redeem with Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer.
Asiana Club
Asiana Club provides some great one-way booking options for ANA first class. Image Credit: AsianaAsiana Club miles provides another great option for booking flights on ANA. Like Singapore Airlines, they also allow one-way bookings.
You must reserve and have your ticket issued 3 days prior to departure, which prevents snagging last-minute awards.
- Search for availability using Aeroplan’s site (see above for the steps)
- Call Asiana at 1-800-227-4262
- The U.S. call center is open between 8:30am-5:30pm PT (Monday-Friday)
- Tell the phone representative you’d like to book an award with their Star Alliance partner ANA
- Provide your travel dates and flight numbers
- Once you confirm space, you will be prompted to give your credit card for any necessary taxes and fees
Other Options for Booking ANA Flights
You can also book through one of ANA’s other Star Alliance partners including Avianca LifeMiles, United MileagePlus, or Air Canada Aeroplan.
Great ANA First Class Redemptions
ANA First Class. Image Credit: Stephen AuEach program we discussed above has its sweet spots:
- Virgin Atlantic is the best way to fly round-trip if you see partner availability.
- Asiana Club often provides solid one-way redemption options, but it doesn’t allow stopovers.
- Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer might cost a few more miles, but you can book one-ways and stopovers.
- ANA Mileage Club requires round-trip bookings, but offers some of the best redemption rates and allows stopovers. Most importantly, ANA has exclusive award availability compared to all other partners.
Here’s a quick comparison of some round-trip award redemptions with each program.
Departure | Destination | ANA Mileage Club | Virgin Atlantic Flying Club** | Asiana Club | Singapore KrisFlyer |
Chicago (ORD) | Sydney | 210,000 miles | N/A | 240,000 miles | 255,000 miles |
New York City (JFK) | Tokyo | 150,000 miles | 120,000 miles | 160,000 miles | 200,000 miles |
Washington, DC (IAD) | Bangkok | 195,000 miles | N/A | 180,000 miles | 225,000 miles |
**Virgin Atlantic is really only worth it to fly to Japan. It’s possible to book to places like Australia and Thailand, but you don’t get anywhere near the same value.
When booking with Asiana Club, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, or Singapore KrisFlyer, a one-way ticket will cost half the miles of the round-trip award.
How to Earn Enough Miles for ANA First Class
ANA miles can be transferred from American Express Membership Rewards at a rate of 1:1.
Singapore Airlines and Virgin Points can be transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards, and Citi Thank You Rewards (all at a rate of 1:1).
You can also earn Marriott points and transfer those to ANA, Asiana, Virgin Atlantic, or Singapore Airlines at a transfer rate of 3:1. For every 60,000 Marriott points that you transfer, you’ll receive an extra 5,000-mile bonus.
Recommended Chase Cards (Personal)
Business Owner? See our article on Chase business credit cards that earn Ultimate Rewards.
Recommended Amex Cards (Personal)
If you’re a business owner, refer to our article on Amex business credit cards that earn Membership Rewards.
When Should You Search for Award Space?
You can search and book ANA flights between 355 days and 96 hours from departure. Start your search early to give yourself the best chance of finding award space, and check regularly if you don’t see space initially.
What Makes This a Great Redemption?
ANA is one of the premier carriers operating out of Asia, so you’ll definitely want to give their first class a try. Here are some of the aspects of this experience you’re really going to enjoy.
First Class Service
If you’re accustomed to the service on U.S. carriers, you might be a bit overwhelmed. Don’t worry, there’s no trick here — ANA’s cabin crews really are that great!
From the moment you set foot onboard, they are ready to help you have a wonderful first class experience.
ANA Suite Lounge
Relax before your flight in the exclusive ANA Suite Lounge. Image Credit: ANAOnce you’re in the ANA Suite Lounge, staff will be there to offer you a hot (or cold) towel and a drink — champagne is a great choice. If that’s not a great way to start off a lounge visit, we don’t know what is!
If you need a shower after a long flight or a long day visiting Tokyo, you can enjoy a relaxing one here. There’s plenty of seating even during busy times, so you can definitely stretch out. If you need a quiet place to work, grab one of the workstations that include noise-canceling headphones.
Whether you’re enjoying a nice vacation or visiting the lounge for work, the ANA Suite Lounge will be a great experience.
Final Thoughts
Go ahead and add ANA first class to your list of flights you must try. If you need a one-way flight, Asiana Club and Singapore Airlines Krisflyer can get you what you need. If you need a round-trip, you’ll often find your best booking options are ANA’s own Mileage Club and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.
Additionally, ANA’s new first class is about to be added to their portfolio, so be sure to consider flying that product as it is sensational.
What are you waiting for? From the moment you arrive at the airport, the service will be amazing. Enjoy some champagne and before you know it, the journey will be as much fun as the destination!
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