Why Virgin Atlantic miles to book ANA flights is the best way to get to Japan in Business or First Class

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If you are considering travelling to Japan, the obvious options – especially if you want to earn Avios and British Airways tier points – are British Airways and Japan Airlines. If you don’t mind a longer journey, you can also use Finnair via Helsinki, Qatar Airways via Doha or Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong amongst other options. These indirect flights are likely to be cheaper and will get you MORE BA tier points because you are taking multiple flights.

There is a third airline flying directly from Heathrow to Tokyo – ANA. ANA runs a daily service, departing at 7pm. It flies to Tokyo Haneda which is substantially more convenient than Tokyo Narita – Narita is about 40 miles from the city centre.

ANA

ANA is a member of Star Alliance. This means that you can credit ANA flights to Lufthansa Miles & More, United MileagePlus, Singapore Airlines Krisflyer, ANA’s own Mileage Club or whichever other Star Alliance airline you prefer. You can also credit ANA flights to Virgin Flying Club.

We did a full review of ANA’s business class service to Tokyo in 2017, which you can read here.

Using Virgin Flying Club miles to fly ANA

You can obviously redeem miles from any of the Star Alliance airlines for reward tickets on ANA.

You may not know, however, that ANA is also a Virgin Atlantic partner. You can redeem your Virgin Flying Club miles for tickets on ANA.

Even better, the rate is VERY attractive, especially when compared to an Avios redemption. Ever since the amazing Virgin Atlantic redemption deal on Air China was killed off last year (see this article) I think that ANA is the best ‘sweet spot’ in Flying Club.

You can also earn Virgin Flying Club miles when booking cash tickets on ANA, if you want to steer your next business trip their way.

You can see the Virgin Flying Club earning and spending chart for ANA on this page of the Virgin Atlantic website.

Assuming you are based in the UK, these are the key numbers you need to know:

Economy return flight (London to Tokyo) – 65,000 Virgin miles

Business return flight (London to Tokyo) – 95,000 Virgin miles

First return flight (London to Tokyo) – 120,000 Virgin miles

Note that one way redemptions are not possible.

These are exceptionally good rates in Business and First. For comparison, this is what you pay using Avios for a BA or JAL redemption:

Economy return flight (London to Tokyo) – 39,000 Avios off-peak / 60,000 Avios peak

Business return flight (London to Tokyo) – 150,000 Avios off-peak / 180,000 Avios peak

First return flight (London to Tokyo) – 204,000 Avios off-peak / 240,000 Avios peak

The price gap between Avios and Virgin miles is stunning. Even with a British Airways American Express 2-4-1 voucher, it is STILL a better deal to use Virgin miles most of the time when travelling Business or First Class.

Even better, there are no fuel surcharges added to ANA redemptions using Virgin miles. You will have to pay the usual Air Passenger Duty, Heathrow departure taxes etc.

If you can’t find availability on the ANA flights from London, they also fly to Tokyo from Frankfurt, Munich, Dusseldorf, Brussels and Paris. Virgin appears to have the same availability as Star Alliance partners and the Aeroplan (Air Canada) and United Airlines websites are both decent places to search for seats before calling Virgin to book.

So …. if you are considering Japan for a 2019 holiday (get in before the 2020 Olympics creates a rush), you should be seriously considering flying ANA using Virgin Flying Club miles. Take a look at our review if you want to learn more.

How to earn Virgin Points from UK credit cards (December 2021)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Virgin Points from UK credit cards. Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses.

You can choose from two official Virgin Atlantic credit cards (apply here, one has a bonus of 15,000 points):

Virgin Atlantic Reward Mastercard

The UK’s most generous free Visa or Mastercard at 0.75 points / £1 Read our full review

Virgin Atlantic Reward+ Mastercard

15,000 points bonus and the most generous non-Amex for day to day spending Read our full review

You can also earn Virgin Points from various American Express cards – and these have sign-up bonuses too.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is FREE for a year and comes with 20,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 20,000 Virgin Points:

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & two airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with 30,000 Membership Rewards points, which convert into 30,000 Virgin Points:

The Platinum Card from American Express

30,000 points and an unbeatable set of travel benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Virgin Points.

(Want to earn more Virgin Points? Click here to see our recent articles on Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club and click here for our home page with the latest news on earning and spending other airline and hotel points.)

Category

Virgin Atlantic and Flying Club

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

barry cutters says:

9 Jan9 January 10:27

For me the biggest issue with ANA (via VFC) is the lack of availability . Having looked at this option a few times i seem to always have the same problem .
Looking at the whole year i cant find any dates at all with 2x F seats , and only a handful with 2x J. -all midweek either late December/end Jan.
My method of finding seats is by using the united website, Am i doing something wrong?
- barry cutters says:
  
  9 Jan9 January 14:16
  
  Is anyone seeing more availability than this for pairs of seats?
mart says:

9 Jan9 January 10:29

O/T Virgin I need 2x upper returns for next December,the outgoing leg is available but the incoming leg is not available yet(T355).
The taxes on one ways are ridiculous compared to returns.I am worried in a couple of weeks waiting that availability on the outgoing leg is gone.
Anyone any ideas?
- Scallder says:
  
  9 Jan9 January 11:55
  
  Book outbound now and call to add return on later. Taxes will get recalculated for the return journey when you book the inbound leg.
  - Alan says:
    
    9 Jan9 January 12:20
    
    There have been some reports that Virgin will no longer do the taxes adjustment. Having experience of booking reward seats its probably down to the employee on the other end of the phone rather than a change in policy though.
- TripRep says:
  
  9 Jan9 January 12:15
  
  Isn’t Virgin 11 months out rather than T355?
  - TripRep says:
    
    9 Jan9 January 12:15
    
    In fact I think it’s T-330
    - Leo says:
      
      9 Jan9 January 12:52
      
      +1 different from BA
Rob says:

9 Jan9 January 13:44

I just the other day booked our trip to Japan with BA, Economy.
I had a 2-4-1 voucher that I was unlikely to use on anything else before it expired so I used it on the economy flight (Don’t judge me!).
So we got 2 return flights direct from London to Tokyo for 49500 points and £700. The cash value was £2000 with BA so I feel we got decent value from both the Avios and the 2-4-1. Pretty rare to get more than 1p value per avios on an economy flight so I was pleased.
I can’t shake the feeling I have “wasted” my 2-4-1 though!
- barry cutters says:
  
  9 Jan9 January 14:15
  
  Look at it this way – You have spent as follows;
  
  £195 card fee. (assuming this got you 25k avios & 241 voucher)
  25k additional avios = £250 worth of value
  £700 cash
  
  = Total spend of £1150 .
  To save yourself paying £2000 cash.
  Good value i would say.
  - Rob says:
    
    9 Jan9 January 14:29
    
    Ah thanks that’s reassuring!
    In my head I was looking at the real cash value of the flights = £2000
    Economy return = 50k Avios + £350, so for two it is 100k avios + £700, which is roughly £1700. (Just over 1p per avios)
    Using 2-4-1 this reduces to 50k Avios + £700, which is roughly £1200. (Around 2.6p per avios)
    So the 2-4-1 “saved” me £500 (of avios).
  - Genghis says:
    
    9 Jan9 January 14:38
    
    And a 241 that is not going to otherwise be used should really be valued at zero.
Jack W says:

9 Jan9 January 14:48

When you book on ANA out of Europe with VS Miles, can you add a connecting flight to the same ticket and pay for that in cash? Or would you have to book separate tickets and collect your luggage and re-check it?
- Rob says:
  
  9 Jan9 January 15:13
  
  You can never mix miles and cash bookings on the same booking reference. That said, ANA may be more flexible than BA on checking through bags IF the other airline is in Star Alliance.
- Alan says:
  
  9 Jan9 January 17:01
  
  Sadly no connecting flights possible as they won’t do redemptions and can’t mix cash and redemption in same PNR. Same issue when doing SQ redemptions, even though for a cash ticket for VS or SQ you would get it on Flybe (from EDI at least).
- Richard says:
  
  9 Jan9 January 17:30
  
  If you’re looking to connect to a domestic flight within Japan, no point in interlining anyway. You always have to collect your baggage at Haneda and re-check for the domestic flight (at the ANA or JAL domestic terminal).
Ben says:

9 Jan9 January 14:54

O/T On the Flying Club site it says you can earn 2 miles per £1 spent on Virgin Experiences:

https://www.virginatlantic.com/us/en/flying-club/partners/virgin-group/virgin-experience.html

I’ve been through the checkout process for a Virgin Experience and can’t find anywhere to enter my FC number.

Any suggestions?
Russ says:

9 Jan9 January 15:44

Was hoping to pick up a couple of the 120,000 point deals purely on incidental spending at Waitrose via the Virgin tie up. Only another 116,000 to go unless they pull this deal like China and it’s in the bag…..
W says:

9 Jan9 January 16:03

Has anyone received the points from the life insurance offer half a year ago?
- Tom W says:
  
  9 Jan9 January 16:46
  
  Nothing as of this morning, have kept the premium running for the time being just in case of any issues.
- Liz says:
  
  9 Jan9 January 16:48
  
  Nope – not yet! Still within the 60 day time frame.
- Scallder says:
  
  9 Jan9 January 16:49
  
  Not yet – was due within 60 days of 6th payment, and my 6th payment was start of January so have it noted for 2nd March is my 60 days after my 6th payment.
- Alan says:
  
  9 Jan9 January 17:01
  
  Not due for another month IIRC?
Zed says:

9 Jan9 January 21:36

Perfectly timed article Rob!

During the Rugby World Cup I got:

LHR – HND Outbound
NRT – BRU Return

then separately for £50 BRU – BHX.

95k miles + £410 for Business on ANA.
Real bargain! Especially during the World Cup.
- SB says:
  
  10 Jan10 January 08:57
  
  fantastic – what dates?
  
  WIth uber restricted dates I am having to go….
  
  LHR-ICN with 2-4-1 in Bus, then local hop ICN-TYO
  
  HND-CDG FIrst – but 240k – ouch – then hop to UK
  
  Some ok ex-EUR cash J fares still available