Interesting few days... humph!

[AntonyJ]

Had an interesting few days with our trip to Japan in May.

First of all there was the encouraging news that Japan was ever so slightly relaxing some of its boarder controls (not for tourists) - which was nice to see.

Then had fun with our booking reward flights!

To recap - we currently are flying Glasgow, Frankfurt Haneda - and return.

Myself - bought ticket all the way.
Partner - bought ticket to / from Frankfurt - ANA Reward Seat in First on way out, and reward Business on way back.

A good friend on here (you know who you are!) tipped me that things were a changing with ANA flights, as they would be published their new schedule soon – and low and behold a few days ago, they decided to stop flying Frankfurt to Haneda on the day of the week (Wednesday) that we were due to fly in May.

In my ANA app I had a notification that the plane had changed, and it offered me the same flight but the day before, on the Tuesday which was fine, we could do Tuesday and hey – meant an extra day in Japan. However, for partner they had nothing in the ANA app but Virgin app said this flight had a schedule change to accept, but no details of what the change was they were accepting.

Following a bit of chat with the very knowledgeable friend on here, came up with a plan of how to handle this. My main concern was that of my partners reward flight, while I had a paid flight and certain legal rights to get a seat, as a reward flight, with a load of t&c’s, I was concerned they might have to look for another reward seat, for which I did a search and of course there were none around the dates we wanted to do – they are somewhat unicorn like in finding!

Anyway, pulled up big boy pants and called ANA in Japan on the UK freephone number ……. For those who have never spoken to them, they are always charming, polite and super helpful.

Took about an hour to get through and explained the situation, their English was very good but it took some time to explain the whole story. The outcome was that I was moved to the plane on the Tuesday, and (in a pleasant surprise) they created / opened a reward seat on the Tuesday flight just for my partner and moved them to that! I just had to call back Virgin to get them to re-issue the tickets for my partner’s flight.

Called Virgin and after about 2 hours got through, explained the situation and the lady checked – yes she could see the ticket was not for a different day and went through checking about miles / taxes that might be due. Now this reward flight had been originally booked for May 2020 and had changed classes (between business and first) several times as we tried to move to new dates – so it has been messed around with quite a few times.

The lady took her time to work it all out and said that at one of the changes of the ticket, there had been a mistake and we actually owed about 3500 points and some money! However, she said she would wave all that given the fact ANA had cancelled our flight – phew!

So we spent that evening picking our seats and booking another night at the Hilton Tokyo Bay – yeh!

Yesterday morning, my friend tipped me off that there were actually 2 reward seats going between Haneda and London – in First – a very rare event – and told me to jump and get them. My partner works for the trains and we could get back from London to Glasgow at zero cost on the train.

Alas, my partner was at work and I was super busy at work and did not really have the time needed to wait in a queue for hours with Virgin – but while it was a no brainer for my partner to move to London on return leg, it might cost some money to move my paid return flight, to London. Nothing came back from my partner as the trains were chaos yesterday and they were just too busy to talk. I did have a small gap with work, so called ANA and enquired about the cost of the change for my flight - £343 in fare differences, taxes and fees. Remember, that was just to move my Business class seat to London.

I was busy, partner was busy but finally thy called me late afternoon on way home and decided to try and get a First for them, and move my flight, to London on return leg.

Called Virgin – voice said queues are over 2 hours long, and exactly one hour into call – they cut me off.

Called again and the voice said it was now over 3 hours long and by now it was time for bed – but my partner works shifts and would be up 04:15 so would call then and hopefully get through quicker.

Now you might have guessed what happened, woke early and checked the rewards seats web site, and they had gone – so lucky person had nabbed them.

Oh these First World problems!

[ERICSMUM]

The most frustrating thing about this is the time “wasted” on the phone 😱.

It will all be worth it - Japan is fab.

[AntonyJ]

Originally Posted by ERICSMUM

The most frustrating thing about this is the time “wasted” on the phone 😱.

It will all be worth it - Japan is fab.

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Yeh the phone times are crazy but these reward seats need lots of manual intervention alas - but would have thought might have automated a bit in all these years!

[CosmicGirl]

One day we'll get there, Anthony. One day...

[sky13]

Wow that's a lot of waiting on the phone but at least you got your outbound flight sorted out! Hopefully all works out and your May trip can go ahead.

[Alyson]

What a palaver for you

[AntonyJ]

Well ANA have release more reward seats and again my partner is now on first on flight to Japan - in the swanky new The Suite seats - so YES had to go through calls again to move both our seats to a day earlier, but not quite as bad as the faff a few days ago.