BOOKED: I’m Flying ANA’s A380 First Class, Hawaiian’s 787!

In the coming weeks, I’ll be headed to Niseko, Japan, for a ski trip. In terms of hotels, I’ll be reviewing the Park Hyatt Niseko and Ritz-Carlton Reserve Niseko. Up until now, I hadn’t really decided on flights, though that’s all starting to come together a bit, thanks to some award availability that just opened. I want to share what I have booked so far, as it’s not totally finalized.

I’m finally flying All Nippon Airways’ A380 first class!

There’s only one Airbus A380 first class product in the world that I haven’t flown, and that’s on All Nippon Airways. The airline has the world’s quirkiest A380 fleet — there are just three jets, and they exclusively fly between Tokyo (NRT) and Honolulu (HNL).

I’ve been wanting to fly this jet for a long time, but flying between Tokyo and Honolulu is rarely actually useful for me, even on a review trip. But I just saw award availability open up in first class within a day of my intended return date to the United States from Niseko, so I figured this is as good of a chance as any to finally try ANA’s A380 first class.

I booked this using Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points, at the cost of 57,500 points plus under $200 in taxes and fees. When you consider that I earned those points with a recent 30% transfer bonus, that’s a heck of a deal! I’ve had great experiences in ANA’s first class, and I can’t wait to see what the A380 has to offer. I just wish the flight were longer!

I’m also going to fly Hawaiian Airlines’ 787 first class

Given that I’m going to be in Honolulu, there’s obviously one product that’s most on my list (well, other than taking the Island Hopper, but I’ll have to save that for another time, as I need to get home eventually). Specifically, I’ll be flying Hawaiian Airlines’ 787 first class from Honolulu (HNL) to Los Angeles (LAX).

This is of course the carrier’s new flagship aircraft, and it’s going to be interesting to see what happens to the Dreamliners in the long run, with Alaska building up a long haul network out of Seattle.

For now, I booked this flight for 80,000 miles from the HawaiianMiles program. I’m hoping that the cost of the flight decreases a bit (either in cash or points), in which case I could rebook. But otherwise, I’m ultimately happy with that too.

What I’m thinking for the outbound itinerary

I now have the return journey more or less figured out, but I still need to finalize the outbound itinerary. So, what am I thinking? Tentatively, I have an award ticket booked from Boston (BOS) to Madrid (MAD) in Iberia’s new Airbus A321XLR business class, so I’m hoping to take that.

What I’m currently keeping an eye on is the possibility of Finnair opening some A350 business class award space from Helsinki (HEL) to Asia. Ideally to Japan, but I’m also willing to double or even triple connect. I’ve reviewed Finnair’s new A330 business class, but would also like to check out the carrier’s A350, no-recline business class.

If that doesn’t work out, I’ll hopefully creatively fly from Madrid to Japan in some other creative way. I’d also like to fly Iberia’s A350, but that mostly flies to Latin America.

Bottom line

I’ll finally be making the journey from Japan to the US mainland via Honolulu, flying All Nippon Airways’ A380 first class and Hawaiian’s 787 first class. I’ve been meaning to check out both of these products for some time. Given how hard ANA award space can be to come by, I couldn’t help but pounce on the availability when I saw it open up.

I’m still finalizing the outbound portion of the trip, though hope it’ll entail Iberia’s A321XLR business class, and Finnair.

Any predictions for these ANA, Hawaiian, and (hopefully) Iberia flights?