One way ANA awards are now bookable with Virgin Atlantic points, previously it was only possible for round trip flights to be booked. These one way flights are pricing at half of the price a round trip. The main reason people care about this is the ability to book flights to Japan on ANA (90,000 – 95,000 points in business class or 110,000 – 120,000 points in first class round trip). ANA Haneda and Narita lounges have been added to Priority Pass as well.
Hat tip to OMaaT
Maybe I’m stupid but what’s the big benefit here? Just flexibility of being able to only book one way? I would assume most travelers doing the ANA Japan award redemption would need a round trip itinerary anyways..?
A few big benefits:
1. Lets you book right when space becomes available without needing to book a dummy return flight that will later need to be changed.
2. Lets you book an open-jaw to another region on ANA metal using VS miles again; eg ORD-HND-FRA, which was originally possible to book but was later stopped by ANA as a violation of the partner booking rules they’d set for VS.
3. Some people don’t want to book round trip because they are traveling home, continuing to a third country, or just staying long enough that they couldn’t book it as a single award.
I’m a Japanese permanent resident so it makes more sense for me to book a one way flight. What if I want to go to Europe, and fly back to US from there? I would like the flexibility of doing whatever I choose to do, not bound by a return flight.
Obviously a lot of people reading blogs will rush to book this without thinking things through. These same bloggers pushed roundtrip award redemptions on ANA a year ago and people rushed to do it acting like they will be able to travel in 2021. Well now we are in 2021 and there is still no end in sight when it comes to Japan. What is going to happen with all these people who booked partner awards? Will they get caught in a deval? Will they simply not be able to find award slots to book into? Once travel reopens I’m sure ANA is going to want to give these seats to paying customers. Seems like a good way to waste miles by investing in this when we really don’t know when things will open?
Availability will be gone in a few days, while the people who successfully booked will have to cancel/reschedule a year from now they realize Japan is still not open to tourists.
Thanks, One Mile at a Time!
Blogs are splooging all over this and flogging it like there’s no tomorrow. Feeding frenzy definitely under way.
ANA redemptions will be dead by the end of the week, will come back devalued across the board. Thanks, bloggers.
oh give it a freakin rest with this talk. it’s 2021 and travel bloggers gonna do what they’re job is. they aren’t ruining it for any of us anymore. Ppl are gonna find means to exploit and utilize good deals regardless. Stop with the superiority complex snob talk already
That’s nice, but no foreign nationals without residency status will be able to enter Japan through at least the summer, and possibly for the remainder of the year. Not even transiting is possible.
You can theorycraft all you want in the meantime, but everything is subject to change at the drop of a pin.
Travel to Japan is still banned for international visitors. Even for Olympics.
Hi is it better to book with Virgin or with ANA going from US to Tokyo? I think with Virgin it uses less points & perhaps you may not be allowed to have open jaw, I’d have to verify that. I think both allow date changes free.
This is a huge sweet spot if the one way pricing is half of the roundtrip.
sounds like a precursor to point deval to me
I’ve been surprised the chart has lasted this long already