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Continuing our series on loyalty program sweet spots, this week we’re shining the light on another foreign carrier, All Nippon Airways (ANA), and its rewards program Mileage Club.
ANA is a member of Star Alliance, the largest of the three global carrier alliances, and also partners with several non-alliance airlines including Etihad, Garuda Indonesia, Hawaiian Airlines, Philippine Airlines, Vietnam Airlines, and Virgin Atlantic.
The first big stumbling block for many points and miles fans trying to understand ANA Mileage Club is the multiple award charts. Mileage Club made the change from distance-based to zone-based awards back in 2015, however, still retains distance based charts for domestic and round-the-world awards.
We’ve written an in-depth post to help members understand ANA’s complex award charts, routing, and stopover policy which is a great place to start if you’re new to Mileage Club, and also a guide on how to book ANA awards which will help with the practical side of booking awards.
Does ANA Allow Stopovers or Open Jaw Awards?
Yes, but the rules differ between ANA awards and ANA partner awards which we cover in the post linked above. In short:
- ANA International Awards – No stopovers when your itinerary departs Japan, but you can book stopovers and open jaw awards when departing other countries.
- ANA Partner Awards – Book one stopover and an open jaw on flights departing any country.
- ANA RTW Awards – Up to 8 stopovers (max 3 in Europe + 4 in Japan)
When booking an open jaw at your destination, the cities must still be within the same ‘Area,’ which leaves open some fantastic routing opportunities when you consider the world is only broken up into 3 Areas.
When you book an open jaw returning to a city other than your departure city, the two cities must be in the same country. The trick here is that the US and Canada are considered ‘one country,’ as is all of Europe if you are traveling outside of Europe.
ANA Mileage Club Sweet Spots
Extracting maximum value from ANA Mileage Club is as much knowing which partner to choose as knowing where you want to fly. ANA passes on carrier-imposed surcharges from the majority of partner awards, with the exception of Air New Zealand, Air Canada, Etihad, Hawaiian, and United.
ANA Business US-Asia 1 for 85K — New York to Chengdu
If you’re chasing the sweetest awards from North America to Asia, you can’t go past ANA. We’ve chosen New York—Chengdu as our example, but you can apply this award to Hong Kong, Taipei, The Philippines, and a good portion of China.
The award attracts roughly $440 total fees and taxes (YQ = $350), with flights pricing at $5,500, returning around 6¢/mile.
We pulled this example for a couple of reasons:
- While it’s an ANA award, one sector of each segment takes advantage of ANA’s codeshare with Air Japan to still come under the ANA International Award umbrella rather than a partner award.
- It demonstrates ANA seasonal awards. JFK-CTU is a low-season fare and CTU-JFK regular-season. The 85K fare stems from adding low-season (80K) + regular-season (90K) together and dividing the result in half.
ANA Business US-Japan for 85K — Seattle to Tokyo
Again, ANA offers the best fares you’re likely to find flying North America to Japan. It’s worth remembering that ANA treats all of North America as one country as far as awards are concerned so this award is also good north of the border.
At 85,000 miles plus $170 in fees + taxes flying business class to Japan, it’s hard to beat. But if this were low-season, the award would cost just 75,000 round-trip.
Round-trip in economy starts at 40K in low-season, 50K for regular-season, and 55K for high-season awards, with business awards pulling 75K/85K/90K respectively.
If you were paying cash to fly ANA business on this route, it would cost a touch under $7,500, with an 8.6¢/mile return.
ANA Economy/Business US-Asia 2 for 65K/110K — e.g. U.S. to India
At just 110K for a round-trip award, Asia 2 is another attractive option with ANA. Remember, this is an award that Delta bumped up to 95K each way at the end of 2016, so 100K/110K, even with carrier-imposed surcharges is still good.
Asia 2 includes other hard to get to gems like Indonesia (bring on the rainforest villa in Bali!), Cambodia, Nepal, Laos, Maldives, and Vietnam, and some more obscure destinations which include Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and the Kingdom of Bhutan.
Flying ANA will set you back 55K/65K/70K in economy, and 100K/110K/115K in business depending on the season, with partner awards biting a bit deeper at 80K + 136K.
United Business US-Europe for 88K — New York to Brussels
United is one of the few airlines with whom ANA doesn’t pass on carrier-imposed surcharges, which makes partner awards to Europe top value. While not Korean Air’s 80K round-trip in business, you can fly United to Europe in business for just 88K plus roughly $100 in fees + taxes, and 55K in economy.
Again, one of the best things about ANA’s award chart in this instance is the region definitions, with Mileage Club counting Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, the Azores and Madeira, and the Canary Islands all within Europe awards. Likewise, Russia is included in Europe without being split into regions.
One of the things to be wary of with ANA partners is the fuel surcharges. Pricing up a flight to Istanbul on Turkish Airlines, for instance, throws up just under $400 in additional charges. Not huge in comparison to the hefty fees of Lufthansa and BA, they still put a dent in your pocket.
This same award price also applies to flights from the US to South America.
Star Alliance US-Africa/Middle East for 65K/104K — New York to Johannesburg
Africa is one region; yes, the entire continent. From the southern border of Morocco, all the way to Cape Town will cost you just 65K in economy and 104K in business. If you can fly partners that don’t pass on surcharges with ANA, you’ll come out of this award miles cheaper than any competing program. The example below, however, is on Swiss & Egypt Air, and cops a weighty $800+ in fuel surcharges.
Using ANA’s Routing on ANA Star Alliance Awards to Oceania and Asia
ANA utilizes a bizarre set of region definitions for connecting flights with the world split into 3 Areas. You can only connect within the destination and departure area’s, with the third area effectively out-of-bounds. For example, when flying between US (Area 1) and Asia (Area 3), you can’t connect in Europe, Middle East, or Africa (Area 2).
The bonus to this is that Asia and Oceania are wrapped up into one Area. As long as you price the award on the furthermost destination, you could fly US-Asia with a stopover in Sydney for example. Or vice versa, fly US to Sydney routing through Asia. And to make it even more attractive, round-trip awards to Oceania are just 75,000 miles in economy and 120,000 in business.
ANA Business Round-The-World Awards Starting at 125K
ANA has essentially repurposed its old distance-based award chart with a few new rules for RTW awards. We detail the rules in another post so will only summarize them here:
- Awards must fly one direction and must cross both the Pacific & Atlantic Oceans
- Fare is based on total sector mileage
- Up to 8 stopovers, max 3 in Europe & 4 in Japan
- Minimum of 10 days between first and last flight
- Can only fly Star Alliance partners
The business RTW award for 125K is based on a simple 4 segment itinerary of JFK—FRA—SIN—NRT—JFK which comes in at 20,313 miles and would cost 85K in economy. For up to 25,000 miles you’ll pay 100K/145K, and up to 29,000, you’ll pay 120K/170K.
If you are planning a trip down under it might be worth adding some stopovers and keep flying in the direction you started. Your costs climb every time you add a stop, but the price rise in miles is only marginal compared to similar offerings from other frequent flyer programs.
Don't Have Enough Miles for the Award?
In addition to offering the ANA Card U.S.A. (not a card we’d recommend), ANA Mileage Club is a transfer partner of both Membership Rewards and Marriott Bonvoy, so you can transfer points from some of our favorite rewards cards
- American Express® Business Gold Card
- The Business Platinum Card® from American Express
- Marriott Bonvoy™ American Express® Card
- Marriott Bonvoy Business® American Express® Card
- The Platinum Card® from American Express
It takes roughly 2 business days for MR points to transfer through and ANA does not have an award hold policy, something you need to be mindful of when making your points transfer.
Final Thoughts
With the constant deterioration of value in US frequent flyer programs (with the exception of Alaska), it’s essential to look further afield to try and maximize the value of your rewards points.
ANA’s booking engine can be glitchy when booking anything but the most basic awards, but for a $25 fee, you can speak to a phone rep who, 90% of the time, is well trained, speaks good English, and genuinely wants to help.
Just make sure to research award availability on United or Air Canada first, and don’t forget to read our ANA Award Chart & How to Book ANA Awards posts to get a deeper insight into one of the world's best frequent flyer programs. We've also put together a post of Award Program Sweet Spots if you want to check out some others.
The comments on this page are not provided, reviewed, or otherwise approved by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.
excellent read. i have tons of ANA miles after transferring from AMEX and i was able to book four business class tickets to see the tokyo olympics. sadly, covid canceled that.
i am trying to book with those miles but the website doesn’t allow me to proceed. can i use miles with this itinerary – LAX to MNL, MNL with stopover to IST, then IST to LAX?
thanks!
tony ortega
Good content. Could we get a list of all star alliance partners that will NOT incur YQ/YR?
Dan Miller over at Points with a Crew has put together an excellent resource that breaks down which airlines charge YQ/YR. You can find it here – https://www.pointswithacrew.com/ana-fuel-surcharges-award-tickets-comprehensive-guide/
Thanks Jess!
So it looks like the info in the Points with a Crew post is no longer up to date. In the comments section he says: It looks like in the past few months (since this post was written), ANA has started charging a lot more fuel surcharges. Your only hope to minimize them is based on which airlines you’re picking, but your minimum is now at least $600 p/p or so unfortunately ?
I asked him to update the post but he hasn’t responded
Ouch! That’s a lot of money to fire at fees and taxes. Will add this to our updates list and get the post updated with new info.
ANA miles on Etihad from Europe to Africa in J/F are the best redemptions.
Great resource, thanks for sharing!
As always, extremely helpful! Thanks!!
USA to Africa is my favourite of this bunch of sweet spots.
The guide is exhaustive and need to be read more time to better understand.
Very good work.
It seems that “one world” is the best option against other partnerships. Very informative. Nice job
nice info, need to look deeper into this.
thanks for having Chengdu in the examples 🙂
For me personally I would agree that there are some valuable sweet spots in the ANA programme.
They appear to offer good seats at low amount of points and low taxes to great destinations. A very understated airline IMO.
ANA has great redemptions. Just need to know what routing you want to take before hand. Just look on website a few weeks before to get handle of flight offers
I am a sucker for the ANA RTW Awards !
My head is spinning due to the complexity of the program but it’s definitely one to keep in mind for flights to Asia.
People who learn to use this program to their advantage have certainly EARNED their low mileage business class flights!
Good to know!
Good value for awards flights.
a very thorough write up! Great job!
Very good article, thanks for the post!
Thanks, another great article on the overlooked ANA possibilities. There some great sweetspots in there to make the most of.
Wow! 120,000 miles business class from US to Australia. Trying to find business saver awards to Australia on American or United is a frustrating experience.
Thanks, I’ve been meaning to look into booking with ANA. Bookmarked.
It looks like foreign carriers have better award programs now.
I agree in the sense that foreign carriers award miles based upon mileage traveled vs. fare based systems.
Seattle to Tokyo is one of the few ANA awards I’ve used. It was a great value and still is.
Fabulous values here, in another overlooked program with numerous point-transfer opportunities.
Isn’t TAM now in Oneworld as a part of LATAM?
Craig, indeed TAM is a part of LATAM and in oneworld. I’ve removed the reference. Thanks!
Cool. I couldn’t be bothered to check whether TAM was one of their non *A partners…