All Nippon Airways (ANA) is a Star Alliance member and a Virgin Australia partner airline, flying twice daily between Sydney and Tokyo’s Haneda Airport.

If you can find reward seat availability, a Business Class redemption on ANA between Sydney and Tokyo is excellent value. Rather than paying thousands of dollars for a ticket, you could get return lie-flat Business Class flights from Sydney to Tokyo for just 156,000 Velocity Frequent Flyer points and around $172 in taxes.

All Nippon Airways flies Boeing 787-9s on the Sydney-Haneda route with comfortable Business seating in a 1-2-1 layout. Of course, when flying ANA, you’ll also get to enjoy the airline’s legendary Japanese food and service.

Although some flights are operated by Air Japan, the actual onboard product and service is the same on both ANA and Air Japan crewed flights.

When booking on the Virgin Australia website, be sure to look for flights marked as “Reward Seats available”. Virgin’s website also shows VA-marketed codeshare flights which are not reward seats and cost a much higher amount of Velocity points.

You can also book ANA award seats through Star Alliance frequent flyer programs, such as Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer.

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Finding ANA Business Class reward availability

As is often the case, the trick is finding reward seat availability… but there’s a trick in itself to that!

Almost like clockwork, All Nippon Airways regularly releases extra reward seats between Sydney and Tokyo within two weeks of departure. This isn’t quite on every flight, but if you have a bit of flexibility, you can often find seats close to departure.

You’ll also often find ANA Business Class availability between Sydney and Tokyo when booking around 10-12 months out. So, this redemption is best for people who either like to plan far in advance, or fly by the seat of their pants!

As we revealed in our recent article about Virgin ending its Cairns-Tokyo service, ANA’s load factors between Australia and Japan have been consistently lower than Qantas, Jetstar and Japan Airlines over the past year. Velocity members can be beneficiaries of that, as it seems ANA often still has seats available between Sydney and Tokyo which they’re releasing as reward seats at the last minute.

Other options if you can’t find seats on ANA

If you’re trying to book Business Class to Japan less than 10 months out, but more than two weeks in advance, consider using your Velocity points to fly Singapore Airlines instead. You could also consider flying Virgin Australia via Cairns if you’re travelling before February 2025 (when Virgin pulls this service).

If you have Qantas points, you could try using them to fly Qantas or Japan Airlines to Tokyo.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.