All Nippon Airways Mileage Club: Hidden Gem Or Overrated?

And ANA miles expire - somehow this is always forgotten

A good friend of mine was patient and a few years ago, for his 40th birthday, flew around the world in 40 days,using the around the world business class ticket. He had to use a lot of patience, but he did get an amazing deal for an around the world business class ticket starting in LA and ending in SFO. Cant remember exactly how many miles it was, but it was pretty cheap. He had to lock it in in advance and couldnt really change things, but it was an amazing trip. I met him in Vietnam during his time there. He went LA-Philippines on EVA, then to Thailand, Vietnam, Maldives, India, and ended in Lisbon, then flew Lisbon- SFO nonstop on TAP. All business class. Oh, and this was in 2020. He got home right before the world stopped due to COVID. Great trip. So he found the around the world redemption in business class useful, but had to be very planned out and he had to have a lot of patience booking it over the phone. But it worked!

I'm currently in the middle with this program having used it twice...
My international travel is almost always to Japan, so it's nice having them for an Amex partner which is my primary points ecosystem. If JAL would get more CC partners, I'd go with them since they fly out of my home airport and ANA doesn't.
Right after opening post-covid, I was able to find F for JFK-HND and C for HND-ORD, but it did charge me around $700 in surcharges.
I was aware they'll charge 3k miles for cancellations, but I couldn't cancel online and had to call after I found a better routing which I ended up booking through United since the refund took about 3-4 weeks and I couldn't find a roundtrip that fit my schedule fairly last minute. They did end up waiving that fee though.

Exactly. @Ben also neglected to mention mileage expiration in his recent SQ KF post. It's one thing if you only transfer just enough points/miles from a CC to cover a single trip, but it's a huge deal if you spend years accumulating miles only to discover that they're gone and worthless without any way to extend the expiration.

Very interesting article. Would love to see more "pros and cons of this frequent flyer program" articles with little tidbits and details like this, especially as we consider how to best manage large accumulations of credit card points. I didn't know ANA only allows round-trip award flights.

Overrated.
Limited availability.
Expensive surcharges.
Miles expire.

ANA is not consistent waiving fuel surcharge on United. When booked online, no YQ is charged. When I booked a round-the-world with a J segment EWR-BRU on United, YQ was added.

@ Justin -- Thanks for the feedback, noted!

@ Marc -- That's a good point, thanks. Updated the post to reflect that.

Well I have 120,000 VA Miles waiting for JFK HND LHR to open up in order to try the ‘new’ suites.
Obvious issue with VA only bookable 330 days out
So I’d be willing to transfer miles speculative at some point in time
My June 10th Japan Airline Flight was very nice

I should mention that one way around the Round Trip requirement I used in 2019 before VA had 1 way awards was to schedule the outbound in January with a return in May. Positioning to the return was the only time I flew east around the world. Availability is much tougher now to plan these trips. Oh well.

Round-trip redemptions only so that's already a big "NO" for me. But then it's also dealing with the clunky website and slow point transfers (Also, don't Marriott Bonvoy transfers also take a VERY long time?) that really seal the deal for me. The fear of having orphaned points because the award availability that I hoped to snag has suddenly disappeared is very real for me. Plus it's not like we are forced to use ANA Mileage Club because NH only releases long haul premium cabin award availability to its own members (unlike SQ and Krisflyer).

And... there are several other Star Alliance loyalty programs that people probably already have points in, several of which have multiple award transfer options. Not to mention Virgin Atlantic. Redemption rates may be better with ANA Mileage Club but sometimes it's not just about the rates.

I transferred miles over 4 years ago and still haven’t been able to use them. Thanks to Covid extension, I still have the miles. ANA tends to release seats at last minute but one won’t able to book with 96 hours. Crappy rule. You can book the seat from its partners but not its own program.

Don't get fooled by ANA Business Class Award availability that's waitlisted. They tell you that you'll know if you have a seat at least 21 days before your flight. In my experience, you NEVER get removed from the waitlist. 21 Days before your flight, your reservation is just canceled with no notice to you. And you're stuck with ANA miles that - as the story says - are very difficult to use. And they expire. I travel to Japan often and have had a much better experience on Japan Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines for award travel.

In 2019, I wanted to book 2 tickets to Japan in Business using Amex miles that I hadn’t yet transferred. For the dates I needed, business wasn’t available, but first was for not that many more miles. I transferred my miles, not knowing that they didn’t instantly transfer. Then I sweated, but fortunately seats were still available once they transferred. It was probably the best flight I’ve ever had. But not being able to have the miles transfer instantly, is a deal killer, and my flight to Japan this November is on JAL using my AA miles.

What about availability on other allied carriers? For instance, what kind of United or Lufthansa or Air Canada or Swiss/Austrian seating actually is available at the ANA website, or by calling?

Miles do not expire for top tier members...true for both NH and SQ.

Unlike many here, I've had very good experiences with redemptions using NH miles. I had numerous redemptions (all premium cabins) and ANA's customer service is second to none, IMO. Many times I have to make changes over the phone and their customer service reps are highly knowledgeable and courteous, better than any other airlines that I've dealt with. More than once, I even cancelled a part of my itinerary after the trip had commenced and received a portion of my miles back. Its award pricing is, of course, nearly unbeatable. Its surcharges are reasonable on its own metal when fuel cost is lower (unlike on many other airlines) and some of its partners impose low surcharges. I agree that hard expiration dates and roundtrip restriction are its biggest negatives, but I've so far managed to not lose a single mile.

Omg, me too. The points are stuck there now. I spent 2 hours looking to use them in just about any city combo jfk/lax/sfo/yvr to everywhere in Asia between now and went I'm dead and all I ever see is the friggin "waitlisted" which is their middle finger equivalent. And my canceled original flight had a tax of $300 and now it's closer to $800. Will never give them a 2nd thought again. Fool me once.

I Love Old Nippon airlines mileage redemptions. I have redeemed ANA in business class about eight times for round trip to Australia. 105,000 to 115,000 miles return.
I repeat return for 105,000 miles.
Now I do book 360 days in advance and sometimes I have to book from different starting cities in the US but it is an amazing deal for me. Since it is a leisure trip to see family I am flexible on dates.
I actually book my outbound as soon it is available with a fake return and then when the correct return is available I pay 3000 miles to change it.
This works wonderfully for me. I would not dream of spending my American Express points in any other way.
I go to Australia every January to see my family and this is how I always go in business class on All Nippon airlines.

ANA Mileage Club is a lot more beneficial for people who reside in Japan. Miles can be earned more frequently in everyday life situations, such as shopping at a convenience store.

One thing that wasn't mentioned is that ANA miles can be swapped for "ANA Sky Coins." There are varying rates depending on one's ANA status, but it starts at 1 coin = 1 yen. It's similar to Delta's approach, but you don't need an ANA credit card.

https://www.ana.co.jp/en/jp/amc/skycoin/

You can also trade ANA miles for shopping points in Japan. Not too relevant for people outside Japan, but still notable.

ANA is my primary redemption airline but that's because I mainly fly to Japan. Even then, I wouldn't recommend it for people who, don't have the flexibility to plan a year ahead, and fly at time that nobody wants to fly and stay longer or short you want, because you will find it extremely difficult to find availability on it's popular routes. For example, it probably doesn't release more than 30 seats for the entire years for 1st class, and you can definitely can count the number of seats released on biz for the JFK to TYO route. In fact，good luck finding 4 seats on econ if you have a family of 4.

Very true!

Convert ANA miles to Sky Coins is helpful to cover the cost of mileage run, or extend the life of ANA mile close to expiration.

Also, slightly off topic, ANA Super Flyers Card is one of the most exceptional benefit for AMC member who have access to ANA card in Japan.

I think you missed the biggest con. Near zero availability on their metal aka their best rates.

I'm hoping someone who has more experience can prove me wrong and help me out in the process but I'm losing hope after spending so much time on this ANA bs, so just let me just rant / warn folks:

It is not only overrated, but also the biggest trap of all of award travel. I'm just going to forfeit my 87K ANA miles, which are going to expire next month, because I had no idea how insanely difficult it is to use these points.

It is almost IMPOSSIBLE to book anything of decent value using ANA points these days. As a normal person who values his time, it is simply not worth to spend hours each week to track flights and hoping that there is even a chance I can snag an ANA or star alliance flight.

I also fly frequently, planning for travel to prague, tokyo, australia, brussel, paris and china in the next 12 months, but I literally can't find anything to use my 87K on.

The lesson is that if something looks too good to be true, it probably is =(

ANA has a great hard product but the phone support is awful with wait times exceeding an hour at almost all times of the day. No other numbers will allow a workaround.

Appreciate your warning about ANA, as opposed to the plugs on other sites like the points (pointless?) guy.

Redemption in business class is more or less impossible, at least as far as I can tell. Have tried on 3 different occasions over the past 18 to 24 months. Looking for tickets to Tokyo from SFO a year out. Either see no availability or the option to get on the waitlist.