The world of flying and loyalty airmiles, points and more is extremely complex but can be extremely lucrative. One would expect that the best value for your Virgin Points, accrued through shopping and travel with Virgin partners, would be on Virgin Atlantic but that is not the case. If you are heading across to Asia, Japan’s second long-haul airline All Nippon Airways (ANA) provides one of the most efficient uses of Virgin Points - here’s how.

How much does a flight ‘cost’ using Virgin Points for ANA?

Booking ANA flights with Virgin Points is sector-based on a pre-determined chart, seen below for round-trips.

What this practically means is that you will need to work out the cost for every leg of your journey and then work out the ‘cost’ using Virgin Points. Here’s an example:

• London Heathrow, UK to Manila, Philippines/Pilipinas one-way

• First sector: London to Tokyo prices off the Japan-Europe/Central & Eastern USA row. In Business Class, the round-trip price is 95,000 Virgin Points (47,500 one-way)

• Second sector: Tokyo to Manila is 45,000 Virgin Points (22,500 one-way).

• Total Virgin Points required per-person: 70,000 Virgin Points

Finding award availability

Ignore anything the Virgin Atlantic website tells you and do not bother searching on VirginAtlantic.com for ANA award space. It simply isn’t possible no matter what the messages on the webpage might tell you - Virgin Atlantic’s IT systems are not particularly robust. Instead, I advise heading to Air Canada just to check which flights are available. First go to the search function here, inputting your origin, destination, travel date and checking the ‘Book with points’ box.

Air Canada’s site will return a load of results, but the vast majority are not relevant because they feature non-Virgin Atlantic partners. It is possible to filter this out by selecting only All Nippon Airways under the Airlines drop down selector. The price showed is irrelevant to us, but it shows that there is one seat available on ANA from London to Tokyo in Economy. The same process then needs to be followed for the second sector, if necessary, before falling into place. This is all we need to know before getting booked.

But that’s not the end of the story because you will also need to pay taxes and surcharges on the ticket. These are not as high as British Airways, but they have increase significantly in recent months because of higher energy prices.

Roughly working out how much you will need to pay in surcharges (not completely necessary)

While this next step is not completely necessary as you will be advised the cost during the booking process, it may be worthwhile considering doing for pro-users of Virgin Points. First head to the beast that is ITA Matrix by Google. This is a powerful tool that powers many travel agent websites for trawling through all tickets but it cannot be used to book directly. That is fine in our case as we are just looking for one segment of the cost. If you wish to learn more about ITA Matrix, there is an excellent video by Matt’s Planet on YouTube here, that goes into all the intricacies of the website.

First head to the search tool and input your origin airport and destination. Under routing codes input C:NH+. This means that it will only search for connecting flights that are on the airline NH (the designation for ANA). If you are planning to fly Business or First Class select the cabin option under the drop down at the bottom before clicking search. Find the flight you are going to take and click the price, ignore what it says here.

Then, once in the breakdown ignore the line that says Fare 1 and look at the aspects underneath. This will vary depending on your origin and destination but this example shows the taxes and surcharges due on your award ticket which must be paid in cash by credit/debit card to Virgin Flying Club, not points. On this example the cost totalled £438.56 on an Economy flight.

Booking an ANA award flight

Now you know there is availability, the points, and cash cost, you need to book the flight ASAP. There is only one way to do it and this doesn’t involve using Virgin Atlantic’s search function. Contact the Virgin Atlantic call centre on +44 344 874 7747 and going through to Flying Club to make a booking.

When making your booking be explicitly clear what you want the call centre agent to do, in my example this would be:

• A one way award ticket

• From Destination A to Destination B via Tokyo on one ticket

• On All Nippon Airways/ANA

• On the specified dates

• In a specific class (Economy/Business/First)

This is essential because it gives the agent all the information they need to know. From experience, some get a bit flustered but most Virgin Atlantic staff are extremely competent and will help you even if it takes a fair bit of time. If they state that there is no award space but you can see it on Air Canada’s website, push back and ask them to search again by sector.

Conclusion

While this process is a lot just to book a flight, you can save a lot of money particularly considering the inflated cost of Japan-Europe flights. If you have a pot of AmEx, HSBC or Virgin Points sitting around and you are eager to get to Asia, then following this route might be the best option to get some use out of your reserves.