All Nippon Airways’ Mileage Club program is transfer partners with both American Express Membership Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest, and offers a pretty lucrative distance based award chart.

The major catch is that they impose fuel surcharges on all award tickets equal to what the airlines would charge on a revenue ticket, which means a transatlantic award ticket will easily cost you $500-700 in taxes, fees, and fuel surcharges. Compared to redeeming with a US airline that doesn’t impose those fuel surcharges, that takes quite a bit of value out of the program. Up until now the only airline I know of on which they didn’t impose these fuel surcharges was US Airways, and that’s simply because they don’t have fuel surcharges on revenue tickets either.

Anyway, Dan’s Deals reports that ANA is apparently no longer imposing fuel surcharges for travel on United, which would be huge. Taking a look at the award chart you’ll see that business class for travel of 4,001-7,000 miles roundtrip costs just 63,000 miles, and travel for 7,001-9,000 miles roundtrip costs just 68,000 miles. This covers travel from most of the east coast to Europe, making this a spectacular value without the fuel surcharges.

What’s also unique about ANA is that they allow four stopovers on an itinerary (including the destination), though none are allowed in the country of origin and only two are allowed in Europe.

Anyway, this may just be the best use of Membership Rewards points for business class travel to Europe now. United has flat bed business class seats on much of their transatlantic fleet, and flying routes like Newark to London for 63,000 miles in business class with no fuel surcharges is a value that’s tough to beat.

I had airport pick up duty last night in Seattle, and got to the airport at around midnight. I was rather tired after a 20-hour day, and thought my eyes were failing me when I saw an ANA 777 parked at a gate. For one, ANA usually flies 787s to Seattle, but more importantly the flight departs at noon, so this would signify a ~12 hour delay.

I hopped online this morning to see what was really going on, and was surprised to find that this was actually a diversion. Apparently it was due to an “injured passenger,” and due to the new flight arrival time (and curfew) they landed at Tokyo Haneda Airport instead of Tokyo Narita Airport.

Check out the flight status on ANA’s website:

So the flight left New York at 4:57PM eastern time and landed in Seattle at 10:35PM pacific time (1:35AM on the eastern time). That’s over 8hr30min!

What’s most surprising is the flight path per FlightAware:

And while I’m in absolutely no way questioning the actions of the crew, I find their diversion to Seattle interesting. It seems like they were way “up there,” and much closer to Anchorage than Seattle.

If nothing else, the fact that the flight took 8hr30min suggests the diversion took at least three or so hours. Again, I’m sure they made the right decision, but anyone know more about the thought process in this case? Or even why they’d divert to Seattle vs. Vancouver, which is marginally closer? Maybe if the crew went “illegal” they’d swap out the flight attendants with those that are supposed to work the 787, or something? But if any crew members needed to be swapped out I would guess it’s the pilots, and they can’t just switch between 787s and 777s. Which makes me wonder how this crew stayed on for ~20 hours of duty time.

Hopefully the injured passenger is alright! Was anyone on this flight (or knows someone that was on it) and can share their experience?

I’ve been wanting to fly the ANA 787 ever since they took delivery of their first one about a year ago. While several other airlines have taken delivery of the 787, none have as nice of a configuration as ANA (Japan Airlines and Ethiopian Airlines don’t even have flat beds in business class). ANA has a really nice fully flat product with seats staggered for utmost privacy (here’s the seatmap). Per ANA’s website, here’s a picture of the business class seat on the longhaul 787:

The bad news is that ANA has been very stingy with releasing business class award space on the 787 on their Tokyo Haneda to Frankfurt route, which was the launch longhaul route.

The good news is that ANA is starting 787 service to the US, and business class award availability is readily available.

Today ANA will be operating their first commercial 787 flight to the US, specifically on the Seattle to Tokyo Narita route. While they’re still alternating between the 777 and 787 for now, the route will eventually be exclusively operated by the 787. The great news is that there’s plenty of business class award availability on the route, as you can see below (I just chose seven dates at random):

ANA will also be launching 5x weekly 787 service to San Jose as of January 11, 2013, and award space on that route is spectacular:

I’d argue that this is the best business class product nonstop between the US and Japan, given that ANA has fantastic service and food, and the business class seats on this plane are awesome as well.

Also keep in mind that this is a great use of US Airways miles, as they only charge 90,000 miles for business class between the US and North Asia. Through their buy miles and share miles promotions being run right now, those can be had for as little as $1,000. I’ll definitely be making one of these bookings in the near future, especially once I’m a Seattle resident — it’ll be weird getting on a nonstop international flight out of my home airport!

One of the most useful tools for searching Star Alliance award space is the ANA award search tool, which most accurately displays Star Alliance award availability in my experience.

Just this morning I noticed a pretty nice improvement whereby it’s now possible to search for award availability seven days at a time.

As always just enter your preferred dates and routes.

After that in the past you would click “Flight Search,” though now they added a “7-Day Availability” search option.

On the next page you’ll be asked to enter your preferred cabin and to confirm your dates and route.

The next page displays a really handy matrix which displays all award availability on nonstop flights for the city pair.

What makes this especially useful is that both the Aeroplan and United websites don’t accurately display Lufthansa first class award space anymore. Lufthansa only releases first class award space to Star Alliance partners within two weeks of departure, so now you can use the ANA tool to search a week at a time for Lufthansa first class award availability. That’s not to say there’s going to be all that much space, but at least you can verify it quickly.

Introduction
Swiss First Class Lounge Chicago
Swiss First Class Chicago to Zurich
Swiss First Class Lounge Zurich
Lufthansa Business Class Zurich to Frankfurt
InterContinental Frankfurt
Lufthansa First Class Terminal Frankfurt
Lufthansa A380 First Class Frankfurt to Tokyo
Park Hyatt Tokyo
ANA First Class Lounge Tokyo Narita, Lufthansa A380 First Class Tokyo to Frankfurt
Westin Grand Frankfurt
Lufthansa First Class Terminal Frankfurt, Lufthansa First Class Frankfurt to Orlando

We took the 6:30AM “Friendly Airport Limousine” to Narita Airport, arriving at around 8AM. We were dropped off at terminal 1, which is the Star Alliance terminal.

Terminal 1

The terminal really is a brilliant example of how alliances can improve the customer experience. Instead of segregating check-in by airline, all airlines share ground staff. There are separate counters for coach, business class, first class, and Star Gold members.

Star Alliance terminal

We headed to the “B” counter, which is for first class, though once the agent verified that we were actually in first class, she escorted us over to the private first class check-in area. It’s a pretty sleek separate room that’s well staffed and has a shortcut to immigration and security.

First class check-in counters

First class check-in

First class check-in seating area

Check-in was friendly and efficient, and within a few minutes we were issued our boarding passes for seats 2D & 2G.

We cleared security in no-time, and headed straight for the ANA first class lounge.

Terminal

ANA’s lounges are by no means the best in the world, though the first class lounge is usually pretty quiet, and I like the way it’s decorated.

First class lounge

What I always find bizarre about the service in the lounge is that the moment you settle in one of the staff comes by to offer you a cold towel and drink, though that’s the last you’ll see of them. They don’t do refills. I don’t understand why, but as with many things in Japan, they have a procedure and follow it without exception.

The food in the lounge is somewhat lacking, though they do have a noodle bar, so I ordered something from there.

Snack selection

Snack selection

Booze

Noodles

At around 10AM we headed down to gate 45, where our flight was departing from. Boarding was well under way, though the dedicated priority boarding lane meant we didn’t have to wait.

A380 taking us to Frankfurt

Priority boarding lane

Lufthansa 711
Tokyo Narita (NRT) – Frankfurt (FRA)
Saturday, December 31
Depart: 10:25AM
Arrive: 2:15PM
Duration: 11hr50min
Aircraft: Airbus A380
Seat: 2D (First Class)

Once on board we were greeted by the same spectacular crew we had on the way out. It was pretty funny because as soon as I settled in the flight attendant said to me “it’s a pleasure to see you again, Mr. Lucky,” which got some weird looks from the guy seated across from me.

Service started with champagne and macadamia nuts.

Champagne and macadamia nuts

We were also offered pajamas and amenity kits. Interestingly, Lufthansa only offers a polo shirt on daytime flights from Germany to the US, though they offer full pajamas on flights from Japan to Germany. I’m not sure if it’s because of the length of the flight or because of competition in the market, but it’s just something interesting to note.

Pajamas and amenity kits

By the time boarding was complete, six of the eight first class seats were taken.

The captain came on the PA to announce the flight time of 11hr10min, and within a few minutes we pushed back and began a long taxi to the runway.

Taxiing to the runway

Airborne!

Shortly after takeoff

Within about ten minutes of being airborne the seatbelt sign was turned off and service commenced, starting once again with the purser passing through the cabin to welcome us aboard and distribute menus.

Menu and wine list

The service in first class today was a bit different than on the outbound. The couple seated in row one was Japanese, so as a result they had a Japanese flight attendant working first class, along with the same excellent male flight attendant that also happens to be a trainer.

While I only talked to the male flight attendant about this later in the flight, it would probably be most useful to mention it now for context. I had no clue that Lufthansa actually has flight attendants based at many of their destinations, including Delhi, Shanghai, and Tokyo. The issue, as he explained, is that they don’t speak a word of German. So if there’s one passenger in first class that prefers to communicate in Japanese, then a German-speaking passenger is often forced to communicate in English with that flight attendant.

Obviously the guy wasn’t a huge fan of the program, explaining that Lufthansa is first and foremost a German airline, and a German passenger shouldn’t be forced to communicate in a language other than German (which I agree with).

But what’s interesting is that the Japanese flight attendant working first class recently moved to Germany to work for Lufthansa, though didn’t speak German yet. She was taking German classes, but obviously it takes a while to learn a third language. It was her first time working first class, so the trainer did everything he could to teach her.

Both of these flight attendants were spectacularly amazingly phenomenal. The male flight attendant was awesome for the reasons I discussed in the review of the outbound – he was personable, professional, sincere, and had a great sense of humor.

The Japanese flight attendant, while not nearly as experienced or polished as the trainer, had one of those smiles that just can’t help but put you in a great mood. Her friendliness and sincerity had me sitting there throughout the entire meal service with a huge smile on my face. I had the chance to talk to her for a while, and it was clear that she loved what she was doing and wanted to give 110% to prove it.

I ordered a Diet Coke with lemon to start, which was served with a hot towel. That was followed by the amuse bouche, which, as usual, looked a lot better than it tasted.

Diet Coke with lemon

Amuse bouche

The lunch menu read as follows:

After that the table was setup, again with such precision and care that it couldn’t help but make me smile.

Table setup

The meal started with the appetizer cart being rolled around. Usually they’ll let you choose as many as you’d like, but the senior guy working the cabin insisted on us choosing as many as we wanted but him serving them to us one at a time so we could enjoy each one.

My first starter was caviar, followed by salmon. Both were great.

Caviar

Salmon

That was followed by a salad, which was also tasty.

Salad

Neither of the main courses interested me much, though I went with the beef option. The meat was so tough that I couldn’t even cut it with a knife, so I didn’t even touch the entree. The flight attendant felt awful about it, and my friend tried the other entree.

I was full, so just sent it back.

Braised beef

Sea bream

Instead I had both the cheese plate and cheesecake, both of which were delicious.

Cheese plate

Cheesecake

The meal service finished off with a box of pralines being passed around.

Pralines

Cabin after meal service

Our flight path took us far North (apparently more so than usual), and the views were pretty spectacular most of the way. You’ve gotta love the tail camera. As a result it was actually dark for most of the flight.

Our route

Awesome views

I spent some time talking to the rest of the crew in business class (the flight was again fairly empty, with no more than 30 of the 98 business class seats taken).

The crew was very junior, and I’d guess that not a single flight attendant in business class was over 30. Later I found out why. Apparently Lufthansa separates their crews not based on trip distance or regions, but rather based on aircraft type. You can either work their Boeing fleet (737 and 747) or their Airbus fleet (A320/330/340/380). Beyond that, flying the A380 takes a special certification.

As the senior male trainer explained to me, “the senior flight attendants didn’t want to have to get used to something new, and weren’t convinced the plane could get off the ground, while the young people jumped on it immediately.” He explained that he and the purser were the most senior on the flight by about 15 years, and that it went way down from there.

With about six hours to go to Frankfurt it was time for a nap, so I requested my bed be made. I got a solid two hours of sleep (it was a daytime flight, after all), at which point the flight attendants came around with a cart containing finger sandwiches and cakes. I always find it interesting that Lufthansa doesn’t really have a mid-flight snack menu, even in first class on longhaul flights. So while I wasn’t really hungry, I picked out a couple of things to snack on.

View from reclined seat

Mid-flight snack

I then decided to watch a movie, and went with “Horrible Bosses,” which was hilarious. After that I napped for another hour or so, at which point dinner was served.

Entertainment system

The menu read as follows:

Once again my table was set with great precision, and the flight attendant was a quick learner, as he immediately loaded my bread plate with pretzel bread.

Table setup

The roast beef starter was delicious, as was the pasta entree. If only they would have served that with the first meal.

Roast beef rolls

Linguine

The dessert wasn’t all that great, though.

Dessert

After dessert I had an espresso.

Espresso

About 30 minutes out of Frankfurt the captain came on the PA, and it slowly dawned on me that our awesome A380 experience was coming to an end. This time around the weather in Frankfurt was rather nasty, so we hit a few bumps on the way down.

Tail camera

After a five minute taxi we made it to our gate, where I had to grab one last picture of our bird.

Upon arrival in Frankfurt

Immigration queues were rather long, and I nearly got in a fight with a teenage Brit waiting in line that was trying to mock me for being an American (I shut him up pretty quickly when I pointed to my EU passport). Once through immigration we hopped in a cab to the Westin Grand Frankfurt, where we would be spending the night.