Bittersweet Email From ANA (Check In Invitation!)

Last year, I made it to Japan from Hong Kong roughly an hour before the quarantine was set to begin and ended up spending six months in the country.

I had to move my flights around quite a few times, and ditched the return of the paid Oneworld RTW ticket (not sure if I can ever use it), and ended up redeeming an ANA First-class ticket using my Virgin Atlantic miles earned in the 2000s.

I honestly had forgotten the return flight to Japan altogether and had assumed that it would have been canceled/modified, but that was not the case.

The day before I was supposed to fly back to Japan on my Virgin Atlantic issued ticket, I received the above check-in invitation from ANA.

I quickly fired up my WhatsApp chat with Virgin Atlantic and was surprised to get a reply in less than half an hour. The Virgin left the return open, and I hope to be able to use it one day.

Here’s my take on ANA Haneda – London flight back in September:

ANA First Class Haneda – London Pandemic Flight Review (September 2, 2020)

Conclusion

ANA and JAL have continued their London Heathrow services mostly on alternate days. I was surprised that ANA didn’t make any changes to the return flights since the ticket was issued nine or so months ago.

My preferred way to communicate with Virgin Atlantic is using WhatsApp chat. There is an audit trail of what was agreed and when compared to telephone calls.

Let’s hope that Japan opens up for the Olympics or later this year so that I can eventually use this return segment.