As a followup to my previous post about All Nippon Airways showing two first class award seats available on the same flights, when previously even grabbing one was next to impossible, here are some more dates and city pairs. This list isn’t comprehensive, I only checked April, 2009 and only Dulles – Tokyo and Chicago – Tokyo. But talk about wide open!

• 4/5 IAD-NRT
• 4/5 ORD-NRT
• 4/7 IAD-NRT
• 4/7 ORD-NRT
• 4/8 IAD-NRT
• 4/9 ORD-NRT
• 4/12 IAD-NRT
• 4/12 ORD-NRT
• 4/13 IAD-NRT
• 4/13 ORD-NRT
• 4/14 IAD-NRT
• 4/15 IAD-NRT
• 4/15 ORD-NRT
• 4/16 ORD-NRT
• 4/19 IAD-NRT
• 4/19 ORD-NRT
• 4/20 IAD-NRT
• 4/20 ORD-NRT
• 4/21 IAD-NRT
• 4/21 ORD-NRT
• 4/22 ORD-NRT

I’ve also been seeing tons of Asiana Seoul – Los Angeles flights with two award seats in first, and occsaional Seoul – Chicago flights as well.

And the good news for Mileage Plus members is that these are filtered out far less frequently by StarNet than Lufthansa first class awards (which are otherwise extemely available to Star Alliance members). Of course once the evil United programmers realize these opportunities they could very well get shut down, or these carriers could end their award seat generosity, so it’s best to grab these awards while you can.

For those without sufficient miles in a Star Alliance frequent flyer account, remember that American Express Membership Rewards points transfer to Air Canada, ANA, and Singapore (which all have different award charts of course, Air Canada being generally closest to United’s in terms of mileage requirements). Starwood transfers to several programs, perhaps the best option for these seats at the lowest mileage cost is US Airways (since United transfers are sadly 2:1).