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One trait of Japanese frequent flyer programs is the tendency to translate the program information in such meticulous detail, that readers suffer from data overload.
The original intention with our ANA post(s), was to nail just one guide that touched on award pricing, definitions, sweet spots, and how-to book an award. But after digging into the program in depth, we’ve had to break it up into three posts.
This post acts as a companion post to the ANA posts below, clarifying the complex award charts and routing for Mileage Club:
Note that ANA passes on carrier-imposed surcharges (fuel surcharges) on the majority of awards. The few partners that don’t have surcharges tacked on include Air Canada, Air New Zealand, Air China, Etihad, Hawaiian, and United, a list which includes some amazing long-haul airlines and opens up surcharge-free travel to numerous destinations.
Understanding the ANA Mileage Club Award Charts
Before you price an ANA award, you need to determine which award chart applies. Mileage Club uses four separate award charts:
- ANA Domestic Award Chart – Seasonal distance-based chart covering awards within Japan, valid on all domestic flights (including codeshare) that use ANA flight numbers.
- ANA International Award Chart – Seasonal zone-based award chart covering international flights on ANA. There are three seasons, and the dates change each year.
- ANA Partner Award Chart – Non-seasonal zone-based award chart covering all partner awards, including Star Alliance and non-alliance partners
- ANA Round-The-World Award Chart – Non-seasonal distance-based award chart covering round-the-world itineraries.
ANA Domestic Award Chart
We only touch on ANA Domestic Awards briefly to explain how they work, as this chart is the least used of the four.
- Domestic ANA awards are the only ones bookable one-way, with fares starting from 5,000 miles for one-sector (segment) flights.
- If an award contains more than one sector, total the distance of the two sectors to determine the overall distance of the award.
- If a multi-sector award crosses more than one season or class (for e.g. Flight 1—Low Season + Flight 2—Regular Season), add the Low and Regular Season award rates for the total distance, and divide by two.
You can find all the details of Low, Regular, and High Season dates through to 2019, plus domestic award rates, on the Domestic Chart page of ANA’s website.
ANA International Award Chart
- ANA International Awards are valid only on ANA (NH) and Air Japan (NQ) flights with an ANA flight number.
- One-way awards are not valid; miles can only be redeemed for round-trip awards.
- Award rates are dependant on the zone, season, and class.
We’ve thrown together a chart for ANA International Awards below. It doesn’t cover all destinations, only the zones where ANA International Awards apply flying to or from the US. For all other international awards use the ANA Partner Award Chart below.
| Destination from US | Low Season (class Y/C/F) | Regular Season (class Y/C/F) | High Season (class Y/C/F) |
|---|---|---|---|
| ZONE 1 - Japan | 40/75/150 | 50/85/150 | 55/90/165 |
| ZONE 2 + 3 - South Korea + Asia 1 | 45/80/165 | 55/90/165 | 60/95/180 |
| Zone 4 - Asia 2 | 55/100/195 | 65/110/195 | 70/115/210 |
| Zone 10 - Oceania | 60/105/210 | 70/115/210 | 75/120/225 |
The dates on ANA’s award seasons change every year, so we’ve included the dates for 2017/18/19 below. Bear in mind, these only apply to ANA domestic and international awards, not partner awards.
ANA Partner Airline Award Chart
This award chart covers ANA’s Star Alliance partners, and also non-alliance partners like Etihad, Garuda Indonesia, Hawaiian, Vietnam Airlines, and Virgin Atlantic.
- Partner awards are not seasonal. There is only one award rate per class of travel.
- You can mix and match Star Alliance airlines for an award, but the award cannot include non-alliance partners.
- When flying non-alliance ANA partners, the entire itinerary must fly the same carrier, see the image below for an example.
Partner award charts from the US and Europe are straightforward, and show award rates across all three classes. They don’t include Japan, however, which is explained below.
Class of Service:
- Y = Economy
- C = Business
- F = First
ANA Partner Award flights into and out of Japan require more explanation. The chart is split into Zone 1-A and Zone 1-B.
Zone 1-A awards contain only one overseas sector. So, for example, a non-stop flight of SFO—NRT would qualify for the Zone 1-A award rate, as would an award that contains connecting flights within Japan (up to 2 connections).
Zone 1-B awards apply to all other international awards. If you have any stopovers or connecting flights outside of Japan, including layovers or open jaws, then you qualify for Zone 1-B award pricing.
There's also restrictions on the region you use as a connecting point. ANA has broken the regions up into three ‘Areas’ which you can see below.
This is an important point to consider when booking an award, and one of the most common errors thrown up by the ANA booking interface. If you book an award from Area 1 (the Americas) to Area 3 (Asia + Oceania), you cannot connect in Area 2 (Europe, ME, and Africa).
It does, however, open up some interesting routing options which we cover in more depth in our post on ANA sweet spots.
ANA Star Alliance Round-The-World Award Chart
The final chart is for RTW awards. This chart is essentially ANA’s pre-2015, distance-based award chart with a few additional restrictions thrown in to make it interesting. We’ve pulled the T&C’s for the RTW itineraries off ANA's website and summarized them below.
- Required mileage is calculated according to the total basic sector mileage for the entire itinerary
- Flights must be used to cross both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans once
- The flight direction of the itinerary must be east-to-west or west-to-east
- Backtracking is not permitted
- Up to 8 stopovers are permitted between the departure point and the final return point (Up to 3 stopovers within Europe and 4 within Japan)
- Departure date of the final international flight returning to country of departure must be minimum 10 days after the departure of the first international flight
- Maximum of 12 flight segments and 4 ground transfer segments on one ticket. Transfers between airports in the same city also count as ground transfer segments.
- Reservation cannot be made through the ANA website; you must call a reservation center
- You can only fly Star Alliance carriers to make up your RTW award
To price up an RTW award, use a tool like GCMap.com, input the airport codes in the order of travel, and tally the total sector mileage against the award chart to determine the cost of the award.
This simple example pulled from ANA’s website came to a total 20,313 miles, so you could book an RTW award ticket for just 85K plus taxes + fees in economy, or 125K in business. Unreal value, and something we delve into further in our sweet spots post.
ANA Stopovers, Open Jaws, and Mixed Classes/Seasons
ANA’s stopover and open jaw policies can take some deciphering, as the policy changes depending on if you fly ANA or a partner.
For ANA International Awards, you can't have a stopover if you're departing Japan, but can book one stopover and an open jaw when departing other countries.
“En route disembarkation is not possible for itineraries which depart from Japan.
Itineraries departing from other countries can have 1 stopover en route to the destination.”
The rules for ANA Partner Awards are different again, and you can book a stopover and open jaw itinerary when departing any country including Japan.
“For itineraries departing from Japan and itineraries departing from other countries, 1 stopover is permitted on either the outbound or return journey.”
To calculate mixed season and mixed class awards, divide the combined miles and divide them in half to get the total. We've provided an example of this in our ANA sweet spots post.
- When flying mixed class or mixed season awards, total the required mileage for both segments and divide by 2 for an award total.
- If either segment has a connection, or more than one sector and multiple classes, use the required mileage for the higher class of service to make your calculations.
Need More ANA Mileage Club Miles?
ANA offers a US-based co-brand card from First National Bank of Omaha, the ANA Card U.S.A. But compared to rewards cards on offer from Amex, it makes more sense to transfer points into ANA from MR or SPG.
Mileage Club is a 1:1 transfer partner of Membership Rewards and a 3:1 transfer partner of Marriott Rewards. You can transfer points from Amex cards like The Blue Business® Plus Credit Card from American Express, or The Platinum Card® from American Express, or any card that earns Marriott Rewards points.
And, if you transfer 60,000 Marriott Rewards points earned on cards like the Marriott Bonvoy™ American Express® Card, you’ll receive 25,000 ANA miles thanks to the 5K bonus miles Marriott contributes to its airline partners!
Final Thoughts
There's a lot to love about ANA Mileage Club. Some of the best award pricing available, and awards that you can book online or via reservations agents that are well-trained and speak English without issue.
Things to watch out for include the complex award charts and confusing routing policies and be wary of the fact ANA doesn't offer an official award hold policy (although they have been known to hold awards for 48 hours when you book by phone). Point transfers from both Marriott and Amex are final, and the last thing you want is 100/200K miles orphaned in an account with a strict miles expiration policy (miles expire 36 months after accrual/transfer, with no option to extend expiry).
ANA’s award charts are a lot to take in, so if there's anything we’ve covered in this post that doesn’t make sense, please reach out, and we’ll do our best to clarify it.
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.
Can ANA mileage be used in TK itineraries?
E.G. miles needed from Turkey to N.America? Are fuel charged incurred on TK only itineraries? Thank you!
Yes, as a member of Star Alliance, you can redeem ANA miles for flights on Turkish. As for the YQ/fuel surcharge, yes, you can expect to pay them on TK itineraries.
The round the world in biz class is solid. Is there any limits to the number of segments that can be taken?
Yes. We cover this in the post: Maximum of 12 flight segments and 4 ground transfer segments on one ticket. Transfers between airports in the same city also count as ground transfer segments.
Some nice sweet spots in the charts, but the hard expiry puts me off.
I have to wonder who it is who works for an airline and stays up at night designing how a frequent flier program works. This analysis helps tremendously to figure it out, so thanks.
Does the Africa and Middle East zone include the whole continent of Africa? If so, ZRH-CPT in business at 68k is a snip.
Yes, it does, all of Africa from Morocco’s southern border to Cape Town. ANA region definitions are one of the highlights of the program.
So can a 1 way within the same region be booked and if so I guess that means a different chart based on miles? I’m overwhelmed at the moment with information. Haha! Im trying to get a flight to Nairobi from Canada without having to book a return flight so I thought I might be able to take advantage of dividing the trip and taking advantage of their Africa being in the region of Europe. If its a mile based chart though I would suspect it could be costly.
Thank you
Marlene
Only domestic Japan awards can be one-way.
Well I read through it and I don’t know about you but my head is swimming and I only read it! Ya’lls heads must just hurt by now! lol! I love more simple things though.
Thanks for the comprehensive chart!
Seems pretty good for traveling in Japan
Great information! Lots of information but very pertinent. Thank you!
Wow I will need to read through this another time to understand but glad all this information is available to us.
can’t wait for the RTW sweet spot
Think my head just spun around lol, but great analysis
Good opportunities but the fact that miles expire after 36 months put me off.
This is why I love this blog, such comprehensive analysis of an unusual program.
Is there a site where I can compare frequent flier programs when I enter origin and destination?
There are a few, like Pointimize and PexPortal. But they just tell you which programs have the cheapest # miles for that route. NOT whether they actually have availability, which is the trick. Since it’s so unusual these days for airlines to actually have routes open for a low price, it’s of limited usefulness. It works better for hotels though.
one way not valid? damn…
ANA may make their award process a little complex but at least flying this airline is worth the effort unlike U.S carriers
My head is still spinning. I’ve never tried it and read so many guides but still confusing.
I’m actually considering a trip to Japan later this year. I’ve never used ANA before although if I were to fly with them I’d probably credit to Mileage Plus for sake of simplicity.
We tend to only ANA miles transferred over from Amex to book EY flights, better redemption rates than using AA.
I flew ANA last year from ORD/NRT using my United miles for 70,000 miles roundtrip in coach. I thought the inflight service was superior to United. I wish that I could transfer my Ultimate Reward points to ANA for an around the world ticket.
I never thought about using ANA – but your Post is interesting and maybe….maybe I’ll try it!
I like ANA. This article helps me comprehend the best usage of point ms might be partners with stopover. Thanks for the great info
ANA is one of my favorites, but one definitely struggles to make any sense at all of the website…
Kinda glade I don’t use ANA… seems pretty complex..
Their strict miles expiration policy with no option to extend expiry (just like Lufthansa’s) was the main thing that deterred me from using this program albeit it has some strong points too.
I miss the old ANA chart.
Looking forward to a RTW in the future… gotta build up the MR balance!
Great post with a lot of valuable information. The round the world awards and lack of fuel surcharges on some partners are great.
You mentioned their strict miles expiration policy but didn’t describe it. Can you please remind me of the details?
Sorry, post updated. Miles expire 36 months after accrual/transfer with no option to extend expiry.
I can’t understand why some FF programs keep this kind of expiry option for miles/ points – I always prefer another program with extended expiry
ANA definitely makes things a little too complex at times. I think it’s part of the reason I haven’t used them all that much over the years.