Nice departure time (noon Eastern) means a very calm Terminal 7
Cons
Honestly, none. Other than it's 30,000 more points per person each way than Korean Air First Class, but you get what you pay for...
How I did it
Detailed info is over here, but the short story is: 110,000 United Miles + $5.60 in fees, per person, one way. We earned those miles through a combination of last year's flying on United and one 50,000-point United credit card sign up bonus. We booked around 9 months in advance.
We got stuck trying to do online check-in, but a quick call to ANA got that sorted out. ANA uses Terminal 7 at JFK, along with British, Cathay, and Iceland Air. Since the bulk of British Airways flights happen in the evening, the terminal was basically empty when we arrived at 10:30am.
ANA check-in for all cabins is located to the right of the main hallway. For some reason our TSA Pre information didn't make it into ANA's computers from United, but the terminal was so empty it didn't matter. The First Class check-in line was empty, and the agent offered to switch us to two center seats since it's quite difficult to have a conversation between a window and aisle due to the design of the seats. We accepted. He then directed us to the First Class lounge, which is a separate space to the left of the normal British Airways/One World Galleries lounge.
Lounge
I'm not much of a lounge nerd, so I'll be brief:
Nice selection of food (onigiri rice balls, sushi rolls, hot oatmeal, pastries, nuts, snacks)
Nice selection of drinks (espresso, real champagne, pour-yourself bar)
Not too busy, but I'm guessing it's a zoo in here between 7pm to 11pm
Broken Wi-Fi, but hey, they had a copier with a built-in fax machine…
I'd been in the Galleries lounge but I've never "gone left" after the lounge dragon!
Computers and copier
With Fax machine no less!
和食 Japanese food options
Pastries
Hot oatmeal and toppings
Full pour-yourself bar and espresso machine
real champagne
Mostly empty at 10:30am
Boarding
The boarding process seemed more orderly than the last time we flew ANA. There's a separate First Class boarding queue and the layout makes it much easier to enter without getting caught up in all of the boarding melee. We were greeted by name and shown to our seats.
The seat is like a miniature apartment - it took me a while to figure out all of the buttons and find all of the secret compartments. (Definitely keep poking until you find the chair massage button!) I know it sounds weird but the tray table is so simple and so perfect that I think it's my favorite part of the whole seat. The laptop storage drawer is also nice, but I wonder how many laptops get left behind on there. Pre-departure champagne, orange juice, and newspapers were offered. There was only one other person in First Class (i.e., 5 empty seats!).
There's almost never a good reason to eat on a plane. You'll never feel better after airplane food than before it. … Much better to show up in a new place and be hungry and eat at even a little street stall than arrive gassy and bloated, full, flatulent, hungover. — Anthony Bourdain
I've agreed with this great quote for a long time, but after my recent flight I think this quote needs asterisk: unless you're flying long-haul ANA First Class. This was by far the best in-flight meal I've ever eaten. There's a full dinner, an elaborate hot and cold snack menu, and then pre-landing there's another light meal. I'll include the full menu and wine list screen caps at the end.
Amuse and Krug
Zensai. The fig jelly hiding under the whelk was amazing
Owan soup with clam
Tai sashimi with yuzu kosho
some tasty Gifu sake
Icelandic Halibut, monkfish liver, lobster
rice, miso, pickles
whisked matcha and wagashi
Dr. K doesn't like wagashi so he had cake instead...
Annnnd a Hibiki 21 to finish it off...
Sleep
When I went into the lavatory to put on the ANA pajamas, the flight attendant made up my seat into a bed. The mattress pad is made of memory foam and has has an egg carton-texture. The comforter was thick and soft and had big foot pocket at the bottom. They also give you a heavy, tempur-pedic pillow to replace or augment the more traditional pillow they give out before takeoff.
After takeoff, you're presented a basket of amenities to supplement those in your amenity kit. The interesting item in here was the squash-and-sniff aromatherapy cards. You open the protective sleeve and then press down on the bump to crush a foam membrane full of lavender essential oil. (The paper on top keeps it from getting on your fingers). I'm guessing these cards also keeps the cabin from getting to, uh… gassy after people start digesting their meals.
Extra Amenities?
Bathrooms are cleaned after each passenger
Hooray for TOTO Washlet!
Cloth towels
Even more amenities in the bathroom
Aromatherapy card
Waking up
the IFE is good - big screen, new release movies, television shows, seat-to-seat chat, tail camera, live map, and satellite phone. ANA produces some of their own shows and they're quite good -- up to date food, travel, culture, shopping, and city guides. The Wi-Fi pricing is a bit different from last year: now it's by time, but with data caps. Given that most phones offer lots of controls to limit cellular usage but very few to limit data consumption on Wi-Fi, it can be easy to go over the limit even while doing nothing. (UPDATE: install this cool tool on your laptop before you travel and you'll have complete control over which of you laptop apps can access the wi-fi!)
Sony noise canceling headphones
Ippudo ramen on board!
Tail cam
ANA original programming
the Wi-Fi works OK, but the data caps make it expensive
Yes we ate AGAIN
I got a bit more sleep and then the pre-landing meal was served. Sake and shio kara to start, then rice, pickles, natto, amberjack, potted baby clams, and vinegar seaweed. The FA triple checked with me that I knew what I was eating because as my Japanese friend's father used to say, "If California roll is the Kindergarten of Japanese food, Natto is graduate school."
mmm salty squid guts...
Breakfast!
Dr. K wasn't in the mood for more Japanese so he just went crazy on the light meal options insead. He had the curry, the fish cakes, the focaccia, and the ramen (!!!)
Focaccia
... with a side of ramen
Fish cakes
And an espresso to keep us awake until Tokyo bedtime
Final Thoughts
Yuzu tea
Before landing I tried the yuzu tea and it was tasty and tart and beautiful and reminded me of the Omjia punch we had on the Korean Air flight we took last year. And while I'm on that topic, can I just say how much better the food is on this flight versus that one? And remember I'm saying this as someone who loves Korean food. We only spring for First Class if we want the in-flight meal and service to be something memorable, and it just wasn't on Korean Air. Our British Airways flight had good (not great) food but the service was so perfect and thoughtful that it's still one of my all-time favorite flights.
Given that there were so many open seats, I wish they could release a few more of these to Star Alliance partners. I'd happily pay the 30,000 mile premium to fly with them versus basically anybody else on earth.
Links
If you're interested in Japanese food, I use my Instagram account as a food blog, so I've been blowing that up quite a bit since we got to Tokyo.
I've also created a Tokyo food post with a few of my favorite places on it.
From Pokemon to Neko Atsume to shuinchou temple books , Japanese people love collecting things. If you've ever taken a ride on the glorious shinkansen bullet trains or ridden one of their extremely clean and punctual urban lines, then you know there's also a national obsession with great trains. The Eki stamp ("station stamp") is where those two obsessions meet . Most Japan Railways stations (including urban metro ones like the Yamanote line) have a unique stamp reflecting that station's history. Kids and train nerds (called "Tetchan") buy cute little books to collect the stamps of all the stations they've been to. The USA has a similar program with the national parks . One of my favorite stamps… All train-nerdiness aside, an Eki stamp book makes a great souvenir : it's flat, small, cheap, and light... and shouldn't take but a few moments to do when you're out and about. Special Eki stamp books are usually available at booksto
( updated Apr 2024 ) I love Washlet bidet toilets. I've had one in my house since my first visit to Japan 20 years ago and I love it when my hotel room or my plane has one. And it's not just me, the NYTimes wrote about them , and several competing brands have appeared in the US in recent years. If you want a Washlet in the sky, you don't have much of a choice – only ANA and JAL have them, and only in the premium cabins. (I think they have an exclusive arrangement with Toto, as we've not seen the Washlet appear even in the super luxurious middle eastern airlines that have butlers and onboard showers). ウォシュレット! But what about hotels? As the spokesmodel in this commercial says, "I can't go on vacation anymore". A few of us were discussing this the other day and I said that yes, in fact, the presence of a Washlet would be a slam dunk for me when choosing a hotel. So I went poking around to find places outside of Japan that have them and started
(updated Mar 2023) As I've said many times before , I'm not a big hotel person – I'd rather be out seeing the sights and meeting up with people than ensconced in the stylishly-bland, comfortable nowhere of a posh urban hotel. There are exceptions, though. Visiting a traditional Japanese ryokan inn immediately comes to mind. While they're often located in beautiful settings, the hotel itself is the primary destination. Beautiful seasonal food, soaking tubs and onsen baths, and lots of quiet time for just chilling out for a couple of days. For experiences like these, I'm very much a hotel snob. Wood-fired hot tub bliss Our first-ever trip to Vermont back in 2010 was specifically to visit Frog Meadow Farm in Newfane. A friend in San Francisco was describing it to us and it sounded a lot like an American ryokan for gay men: seasonal breakfasts, a wood-fired soaking tub, a massage studio, miles of private hiking and cross-country skiing trails, orchards and honey
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