Notices
Shanghai, Tokyo and Hong Kong Theme Parks Shanghai, Tokyo and Hong Kong Holiday Planning Questions, Suggestions and Tips.

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Old 11 Oct 19, 07:57 AM  
Link to this Post
#1
AntonyJ
VIP Dibber
 
Join Date: Sep 08
Location: Carfin, Motherwell
Virgin Airmiles To Get To Japan - Now Even Better!

Folks may remember that my Tokyo trip in May was made even more amazing by getting First and Business class seats for the trip, via an amazing Virgin air miles redemption with All Nippon Airways (ANA).

For 240,000 Virgin air miles and about £740 in taxes and fees - we got approx £35,000 of seats. The flight / seats were amazing.

EDIT - this is not correct as I had a Business seat at 90,000 airmiles - so our flights was 210,000

Well, the place that told me about this has put up another story of this amazing redemption - that go even further round the world on the same ticket!

godsavethepoints/vir...open-jaw-120k/

Now you might think you would never earn this many air miles (it took me some years with a Virgin credit card, Tesco club card, Virgin Shop Away) but let me put it like this...

You can buy 100,000 air miles a calendar year for about £1500, so over next 2 years you could buy 200,000 airmiles for £3000.

With the Virgin miles booster offer on the moment you can buy 120,000 air miles for that amount.

So, you might be able to get £35,000 worth of seats (for two people) for £3000. Yes, a lot of money but if you could save for that special trip...

Saying that my First and Business tickets would have cost £35,000, two First class seats would have been even more.

Anyway, just putting this out there.

Edited at 07:53 AM.
AntonyJ is offline Boy Mouse Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
Old 19 Oct 19, 07:13 PM  
Link to this Post
#2
lov2dibb
VIP Dibber
 
Join Date: Nov 07

theDIBB Guidebook
Guidebook Photos: 11
Guidebook Reviews: 7
Good to know and sounds a great deal but how do you actually find out about availability and book?
lov2dibb is offline Girl Mouse Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
Old 20 Oct 19, 03:20 PM  
Link to this Post
#3
AntonyJ
Thread Starter
VIP Dibber
 
Join Date: Sep 08
Location: Carfin, Motherwell
OK - lets assume you have the miles. We were also very flexible on the dates we could go in May, so basically had 4 weeks of dates to play with. I was advised to look to fly out early in the week, as ANA are a business type airline on that route, so people might buy tickets to get there for start of the week.

Remember - I went in May this year but started to get my seats 11 months before - when the seats started to come out. Also, there is a gap between the seats becoming available, and you being able to nab them via Virgin - about 10 days I think. Call and talk to Virgin Flying Club for the exact timings here.

So, about 11 months before the dates you want to fly, start looking at united.com and take the following options:

Put in the dates you want to travel - best to be flexible on the dates - enter your FROM and TO dates - you will see when you pick TO how far you can look into the future.

FROM - London Heathrow
TO - Tokyo Haneda

Tick - BOOK WITH MILES

Tick ROUNDTRIP but you can do ONE-WAY if you are really flexible.

Select FIRST and then finally FIND FLIGHTS

You get prompted to log into the United reward scheme - hit the tiny X in the top right corner to get rid of it.

A long list of flights come out but remove the tick next to WITH STOPS (this will show the ANA flights only / mostly - getting rid of other partner flight options) and quite possibly you will see NOT AVAILABLE under all the dates - but click on the VIEW 30 DAY CALENDAR to see what is out there.

As I do it now it shows some availability on
28th July 2020 - so click that square.

It then loads details of flights, but has forgotten a few things you selected - so remove the WITH STOPS option again.

As you will se it shows a First Class reward seat available - so you would call Virgin and try to nab it! You have no idea if it is one seat or two, until you call Virgin.

18th / 19th August shows some reward seats also - First class too.

So what I did, over a number of weeks was:

1 - nabbed the First Class seat outbound - put my partners name on it. I think at same time I nabbed an economy seat outbound for myself.

2 - kept checking for me to get Business or First or Economy over next few weeks, and nabbed an Outbound Business seat for myself on the same flight. So we were both going there

3 - Found a First Class return flight for partner and put their name on it - so they were travelling in style both legs.

4 - Found a economy return flight for myself on their plane and nabbed that - so at least I was coming back!

5 - about a month before we flew out, nabbed a Business class seat home - so I did there and back in Business.

So, it is building a flight in parts, over weeks / months.

If you change you seat type on the same flight, there is no charge from Virgin, bar the points and taxes.

Got that?

If so will explain how EXPERTFLYER web page did most of the hard work after I nabbed the first class seat out for my partner.

ANA also do this route from Frankfurt and Stockholm I think - so if you do not mind flying via there, can check for flights to / from those cities.

Edited at 03:23 PM.
AntonyJ is offline Boy Mouse Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
Old 20 Oct 19, 10:46 PM  
Link to this Post
#4
lov2dibb
VIP Dibber
 
Join Date: Nov 07

theDIBB Guidebook
Guidebook Photos: 11
Guidebook Reviews: 7
Amazing and very helpful instructions, thanks!
I'll give it a go when I'm ready to book - might be a wee while until I build up more miles.
lov2dibb is offline Girl Mouse Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
Old 21 Oct 19, 06:58 AM  
Link to this Post
#5
AntonyJ
Thread Starter
VIP Dibber
 
Join Date: Sep 08
Location: Carfin, Motherwell
Thanks - glad it was of some use - we had the most amazing experience on our ANA flights to Japan - and all for (what felt like) pennies on the £ for the cost of them. We also got into the Singapore First Class lounge at Heathrow - swanky!
AntonyJ is offline Boy Mouse Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
Old 21 Oct 19, 07:43 AM  
Link to this Post
#6
AntonyJ
Thread Starter
VIP Dibber
 
Join Date: Sep 08
Location: Carfin, Motherwell
The other tool I used to help nab these flights was the expertflyer web site.

Basically, you give the site some info (FROM / TO / AIRLINE / FLIGHT NUMBER / CLASS OF SEAT / DATE) and you create an alert for that criteria.
In the background it tries to dummy bookings (I never found out how often it does its dummy bookings! ) and sends you an email when it finds one.
Then you get on the phone to Virgin and try and nab it before someone else

There is a free / basic version that allows you to create a small number of alerts, but I jumped at the paid version (think was $10 a month) that allows many many more search alerts.

Once I nabbed the outbound First out for my partner (and possibly a standard class at same time for me, I forget), by using the united.com web site search, I then heard about this site and created many alerts on various travel options.

We knew we wanted to go in May as early as possible in the month, but a few days after Golden Week was over, we wanted at least 12 days out there but would have been happy to do 3 weeks max, and as flights from Edinburgh to Stockholm (another airport that ANA to Tokyo flights run from, and is a cheap flight from Edinburgh, and also do flights from Frankfurt) we had quite a lot of alerts in play!

So we had the one First and Economy out on May 7th so I created alerts that looked for

Another First out on that date
Another Business on that date
First back 12 days later
First back 13 days later
First back 14 days later
First back 15 days later
Etc. etc. etc.

The same for Business back
The same for Economy back
Etc. etc. etc.

Then sat back and waited for the emails to roll in!

Over the next weeks and months, one by one, we managed to get me into Business and my partner into First. We quickly had economy seats at least for the flights, so knew we were going, but was pleased to get the seats we did in the end – thought it took about 4 weeks before we left for my Business class seat to appear and be nabbed for the return leg.

As these seats were going to be “once in a lifetime” type of thing, we even considered looking to see if one of us could fly a day earlier / later than the other, to nab First, but in the end it played out as it did – we were on the same flight. We picked our seats via ANA app once we had booking ref from Virgin, and as we upgraded seats from Economy kept moving them. In the end, all that separated me from my partner was a curtain.

I asked ANA via an email if I could go into First to see my partner, they said no, but they could come see me
In the end it was fine, as we took off, ate and then it was bed time – and they came see me a few times and we chatted via the inter seats text chat feature – which with the ≈≈≈≈py “remote” was a slow painful thing to do!

That was basically it.

Tips / Tricks?
Be flexible on your dates.
Not all flights will have reward seats, and not flights have them in all classes – they would rather sell that seat than give it away…..
As ANA on this route appears to be more aimed at business travellers (their plane from Heathrow has a massive Business class, small Premium Economy and Economy by comparison) then look to nab seats Tue / Thurs as I think that is when the business people would be less likely to fly – but what do I know! I personally think they release 1 First class seat as a reward seat, per flight, if at all, but have no proof as neither the united searches or the expertflyer alerts, tell you how many seats are available when they give their results. When I got my first email alert from expertflyer web site, I checked it on United web page too, but it did not come up on united as being available, but when I called Virgin it was there and I nabbed it – never found a 100% reliable indicator of availability.

Saying it was once in a lifetime for us may be wrong, we are looking to build up air miles to do it again in May 2022……………………… with a trip to Australia for about 5 days in there, will see.

So you need 120, 000 Virgin Air Miles for First return ticket, 90,000 for Business.

As things stand I have 55,000 miles at the moment, with a NYC trip in May that I have triple boosted those miles on for both of us.

I do Virgin Shop Away when I can but unlike last time, am no longer getting the £250 worth of fuel a month double wammy (buy with Virgin Credit card, get Tesco club card points that convert to Virgin air miles) as I have an electric car now.

I can buy 1000,000 airmiles in a calendar year for £1500.
The question is this, do I buy 100,000 next year and the year after – spending £3000 or so to get them – to try and get these seats again, when Virgin / ANA could withdraw this at any time and then I am left with 200,000 + air miles? Yes I could use them am sure but it appears a bit of a risk, as when I did it last time I had earned them over a few years and it felt less …… risky.

But then, £3000 to get seats that last time would have cost £35,000 to buy normally (would cost even more for 2 First Class flights! ) makes you go hmmmmm, perhaps we could eat baked beans for next 2 years….


#FirstWorldProblems

Edited at 07:51 AM.
AntonyJ is offline Boy Mouse Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
Old 21 Oct 19, 09:30 AM  
Link to this Post
#7
THE WIZARD
VIP Dibber
 
THE WIZARD's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 10
Location: East Midlands
AJ if you regularly shop at any of the Shops away listed places (W'rose etc) & you havent already done so, link your credit card to shops away & you get extra miles when you shop at them too.
__________________
The Wizard
THE WIZARD is offline Girl Mouse Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
Old 21 Oct 19, 10:19 AM  
Link to this Post
#8
AntonyJ
Thread Starter
VIP Dibber
 
Join Date: Sep 08
Location: Carfin, Motherwell
Thanks - spooky timing as did that just yesterday!
AntonyJ is offline Boy Mouse Click to view Members Trip Plans Add Member to Ignore List
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Forum Jump


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 06:48 AM.


Powered by vBulletin - Copyright © 2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
DIBB Savings
AttractionTickets.com

Get £10 off each Disney Ticket with the code ATDIBB10

Get up to £50 off per room at Disney or Universal with the code DIBBHOTELS


theDIBB Blog
One of the the five worlds found in Epic Universe, How to Train Your Dragon... Read More »
Disney announced that a new nighttime show, “Disney Dreams That Soar,” will run nightly at... Read More »
Walt Disney World Resort guests can get ready to have a “glowing’’ good time when... Read More »


theDIBB Menu


Exchange Rates
US Dollar Rates
ASDA  $1.2354
CaxtonFX  $1.2303
Covent Garden FX  $1.2544
FAIRFX  $1.2350
John Lewis  $1.2380
M&S  $1.2178
Sainsburys  $1.2354
TESCO  $1.2364
Travelex  $1.2353
Updated: 05:30 29/03/2024
Euro Rates
ASDA  €1.1447
CaxtonFX  €1.1419
Covent Garden FX  €1.1526
FAIRFX  €1.1432
John Lewis  €1.1457
M&S  €1.1263
Sainsburys  €1.1440
TESCO  €1.1445
Travelex  €1.1435
Updated: 05:30 29/03/2024

DIBB Premium Membership
Did you know you can help support theDIBB with Premium Membership?

Check out this link for more information and benefits, such as...

"No adverts on theDIBB Forums"

Upgrade Now



X