All Nippon Airways (ANA) has announced plans to significantly devalue award redemptions through its Mileage Club frequent flyer program…
Continue reading: Major ANA Mileage Club Award Chart Devaluation
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Wait... people actually got business awards tickets on ANA?
#foreverwaitlisted
Considering how impossible awards are, they could up a FC award to 5,000,000 points with no impact to anyone.
Even with the announced devaluation, redemption points amounts are very competitive through ANA Mileage Club. For those of us who want value over simplicity, ANA is still the way to go. Booking an RT award from the United States to Southeast Asia in business class is not easy, needing 4 segments available. It can be done with persistence, creativity, and luck. That is what it takes to book awards at the fraction of the points totals compared to other Frequent Flyer programs.
Although rates are great on paper, I really haven't been able to use ANA miles for US/SE-Asia trips. 1) they rarely have more than 1 seat available in business (or even PY) on each flight - difficult to book when traveling with even one other person, especially a kid, 2) high taxes, 3) roundtrip requirement. I'd rather use a program that charges slightly more in miles but have multiple, low-tax, one-way seats.
I’ve used ANA a lot for business class awards. This could have been much worse. I guess we’re all just waiting for the massive AA partner award devalue coming soon.
NA to Africa for 104k return has been excellent value (no surcharge on Ethiopian) those flights are often ~20h each way. Still a good value at the new rate of 130k.
NA to South America for 88k was another great use.
Nowhere near as catastrophic as TK. Phew. Hopefully they don't touch the round the world award.
@Ben - Any word on whether ANA is increasing redemption rates for their RTW awards?
NH miles have been among my favorite mileage currencies (I used them for a trip on BR in business just a few months ago), despite all the quirks mentioned in the article, but not anymore. Yes, redemption rates are still more than competitive in many cases, but its remaining cost advantage can no longer offset all the negatives about the program (mainly, for me, the requirement of booking roundtrip and hard mileage expiration).
I’ve used the 104k to africa many times. That’s such a big hike and will mean that I’ll probably start looking at alternatives because one of the other big negatives you didn’t mention is you can only have 3 flights in any one direction. I typically buy these tickets for my parents who live in Alaska. So Alaska to a small country in Africa requires 3 flights on a perfect day, but often, with limited award space, realistically take 5 (or 4 if you’re lucky). I appreciate them giving us a heads up… I guess time to plan some more trips!
Pre-pandemic, I used ANA's program religiously to book travels J award seats from the West Coast to Asia on either EVA, ANA or Air Canada with a free stopover in either Japan or Taiwan but it has not been the case post-pandemic. Now, you cannot find one single award J seat to anywhere in Asia or Europe from the West Coast even when looking at a year out. ANA has put all of their own awards J seats on waiting list and their waiting list never clears in my past experience. Their program is pretty useless to me to this point and this devaluation is just a nail on the coffin.
Its got to a point where these awards are getting less and less enticing. Factor in all the time spent, its getting to a point where its not at all worth anymore.
On my experience, they never ask a proof. As it is too difficult to prove relationship between someone and grandfather in-law in many countries - even in Japan - while they explicitly allow such redemption on their webpage.
I’ve used them for direct IAD-HNL on United's and it was great value. Also USA-north Asia with stop over in Japan. Just remember not to keep any extra miles in the account.
ANA is quite stingy to open business class award seats, especially on long-hauls. I mainly redeem their miles for domestic travel.
The only outstanding feature of AMC is quasi-lifetime SA Gold status which could be obtained by applying and keeping Super Flyers credit card once you reach "Platinum" level (equivalent of United Premier Gold) of ANA mileage Club. This requires bank account and residence in Japan so this program has limited value for those outside Japan.
Took about an hour, but Just booked LAX to Tokyo business class for 85,00 points. Thank you for the heads up on devaluation
Just don't see the value in investing in some of these FFPs that have hard expiration dates and whose go-to is to waitlist you until right before the flight.
Even with transferring in points, they just seem so much more hassle than they're worth-- and I say that as someone who'd otherwise really want to invest heavily in Singapore KrysFlyer. 🙁
Overcrowded Tokyo lounges, very limited award space, lousy service on the ground…
Not worth it before this devaluation.
Ha! I see this glass-half-full news. Makes me more comfortable taking my RT ORD HND in new First even though much of the December flight is dark and minimizes the best part of new First - the 3 windows. I’ll check this off my list and move on.
I was on wait list for October First including the Giant Turtle HNL NRT on open jaw return to JFK but I couldn’t find out much about how it works and how successful people are in clearing
Ben, have you posted anything or know about this? Thanks
How right you are! After having been a diamond member for at least 15 years, I've just given up on them. Now I fly AF, stopping in Paris for a few days each way. It's lovely.
It's a useless FFP with very poor customer service. Not to forget the huge fuel surcharges added to the tickets. Prior Covid era you could see lots of availability on all the partner airlines. Now it is a nightmare to find even a single one. Calling the helpline, if you have the patience to wait for over an hour, will most of the time connect you to some people in Japan with limited English fluency and who stereotyped repeat sentences without making any attempt to assist the customer. I made the fatal mistake of transferring my points to this program and sorely regret it.
As someone who flys ANA a ton (enough to have Diamond status), I am not too disappointed in these changes.
No one likes mileage devaluations, but this one really isn’t that terrible.
As for being able to book award reservations, having status with ANA is a huge game changer. I would say about 75% of business class flights that show waitlist for regular accounts, are allowed to be confirmed for elite status members.
The Mileage Club has become all but useless to me for award tix in J from USA to Asia and beyond, I cannot find a single seat available even for travel in November/December 2024. I have 15K miles expiring soon. I thought about using the miles to book a short haul PDX-YVR but even that costs 30K in Y plus $250 surcharge for less than 1.5-hour flight, I can purchase a tix for less than that.
I appreciate this insight. I have 2 different flight to book from Tokyo to HNL (rt) and trying to figure how can I use my points to at least book business or PE and upgrade to business with points. I have over 100,000 I can transfer from Amex to Ana. I know there are other airlines but I truly do love ANA and had great experiences.
I have to say when it works out it really works out. 85k for r/t business class from eastern U.S. to Japan is insane. I was highly skeptical when I did it because it also included a pair of domestic flights in Japan for apparently no additional points. So it was four flights in total for 85k points. Insane if you ask me. I'm trying to do it again but am waitlisted this time -- I imagine everyone booked ASAP after ANA made the announcement earlier this year. Kicking myself for not acting faster.
QUESTION: Does anyone have a take on the April 18 deadline? When I booked the flight the language definitely made me think that they calculate the miles at the time of booking and NOT the time of reservation. So I'm thinking that on April 18, if I'm not cleared from the waitlist (which seems very likely), my 85k r/t business class award ticket instantly becomes a 137k r/t business class ticket. Even if I am cleared, I wouldn't have enough points in my ANA miles account to cover it and thusly the reservation would be canceled.