ANA award floodgates opened for new SFO-HND route: book now for the Olympics!!


ANA has just opened the booking window for their new SFO-HND (Tokyo Haneda) route, and as anticipated, the award seat floodgates have officially opened up!  On many dates, including for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic games, you can find 2 seats open in both business and first class!  During the entire peak season summer months, premium seat award availability is literally off the charts everyday:

To search for award availability, you can use United's calendar award search.  United charges 80,000 miles each way for business class and 110,000 miles each way for first class.  However, the following programs will net far better redemption rates for business class:

1.  ANA Mileage Club: 75k-90k miles (depending on the season) + ~$267 fees (roundtrip only)
2.  Virgin Atlantic Flying Club: 90k miles + ~$267 fees (roundtrip nonstop only)
3.  Avianca Lifemiles: 75k miles one-way

And if you want to fly in ANA's excellent first class product, Virgin Atlantic charges just 110k miles roundtrip, which is what United charges for a one-way ticket!  Virgin Atlantic is a 1:1 transfer partner with Chase UR, Amex MR, and Citi TYP, making their miles easy to accumulate.  In addition, they occasionally run 30% transfer bonuses with Amex MR and Citi TYP, though there unfortunately isn't a transfer bonus at the moment.

$200 bottle Krug Champagne in ANA First Class

As a reminder, ANA's new SFO-HND route operates on the following schedule starting on March 29th on a four cabin 777-300ER:

NH108 Haneda to San Francisco departing 10:55PM arriving 4:25PM [Tue, Fri, Sun]
NH107 San Francisco to Haneda departing 1:45AM arriving 5:00AM (+1 day) [Mon, Wed, Sat]


Quick thoughts

ANA is typically stingy on releasing premium award space, so this presents itself as an excellent opportunity for you to go to Japan or for the Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo.  It's not unusual for carriers to open the award floodgates when the booking window for a new flight opens, but this unprecedented award availability will not last, so book now!


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