Some time ago, I covered that ANA All Nippon Airways usually allows travelers on award tickets to stand by for earlier domestic flights and sometimes even confirms them straight at the check-in counter, but that policy seems to have changed.
At least when traveling on tickets issued by partners (such as United Mileage Plus), I was told by two separate agents that ANA now no longer allows this, although on NH-coded tickets it’s still available.
I experienced both ends of this within the last seven days, as I arrived on an ANA award from Beijing with a connection to Osaka Itami, and the check-in agent at Haneda was able to rebook me straight to a connecting flight 3 hours earlier.
Sadly, this morning I had the opposite experience when flying from Itami back to Haneda on a Mileage Plus Award (6000 miles + $5.60 tax) and my flight was originally booked for 1 pm.
I tried to catch the 11 am flight as I woke up rather early this morning and thought it was better to get this flight over quickly. After catching the Airport Bus from Namba to Itami, I arrived at 10:25am at the airport.
However, this time the agent and the supervisor at the Star Alliance Gold Elite Check-in area both refused, stating that this isn’t possible anymore on partner-issued award tickets. I left and tried my luck again at a regular counter downstairs; same result.
The official ANA website doesn’t list any such restriction one way or the other.
You can only make a standby request if the following conditions are met.
You can only make a request one flight at a time (requests cannot be made for multiple flights at the same time) You can make a standby request only within the same class The flight must depart from the same terminal at the same airport on the same departure date as your reserved flight. (You cannot change the departure or arrival airports.) If you wish to make an upgrade waitlist request, you must have an Economy Class reservation for the same flight. (You cannot make a waitlist request for a different class on a different flight.)
* Same conditions apply for cancellations and delays caused by bad weather. (i.e, You cannot make a standby request if you do not have a reservation for the same day.)
Since United awards can be canceled free of charge, I canceled the ticket on the spot and bought a new one-way on a Japan Airlines B787 Dreamliner that departed 38 minutes later.
I was actually amazed that I could still buy this ticket on their website this close to departure and the price was less than a hundred bucks:
Spending $100 or 6k + $6 is pretty much the same thing, and I felt really indifferent about doing this. The advantage being that JAL used a beautiful 787 Dreamliner with much better seating than ANA on the old 767 and I got a nice glimpse of Mt. Fuji, scoring the last window seat (all the way in the back).
Sadly, no more upgrades were available for Class J or First Class on this trip due to the late booking but it was very comfortable in these Dreamliner seats.
Here is my article from last year where I was very happy about this service:
Great ANA All Nippon Airways Experience To Use Standby For Earlier Flights On Award Tickets
I guess all good things come to an end so it was fun while it lasted.
Conclusion
Being able to catch an earlier flight on these ANA Domestic trips has always been a very nice perk, but now it appears (according to staff at Osaka-Itami) this is no longer possible at least for partner awards.
While it definitely still works on ANA’s own tickets, as I experienced just a week earlier, this seems to be a new policy. First I thought I had a stubborn or incompetent agent so I just left that counter and went to another one but the same result hints at this being a new policy, at least at this particular airport if not network-wide.
In my case I bought a new ticket on JAL and took the flight at 11:30 am instead with the United Miles being instantly refunded after I cancelled my check-in on the ANA ticket in the app.