All Nippon Airways (ANA) has announced plans to significantly devalue award redemptions through its Mileage Club frequent flyer program…
In this post:
ANA Mileage Club increasing award costs
ANA Mileage Club will be significantly increasing redemption rates for bookings as of April 18, 2024. While the changes are significant, I appreciate the program’s transparency in providing advance notice, and also in listing both the before and after award costs with this announcement.
With this devaluation, we’re seeing changes to the ANA international award chart, as well as to the partner airline award chart. ANA Mileage Club has historically had really attractive redemption rates, among the lowest in the industry. With these changes, redemption rates will still be competitive, but just not as good.
So, how bad are the changes? Here are a few highlights (and note that all redemption rates are roundtrip):
- ANA business class awards between the United States and Japan are increasing in cost from 75,000-85,000 miles to 100,000-105,000 miles
- ANA first class awards between the United States and Japan are increasing in cost from 150,000 miles to 150,000-170,000 miles
- Partner business class awards between the United States and Europe are increasing in cost from 88,000 miles to 100,000 miles
- Partner business class awards between the United States and Japan are increasing in cost from 90,000 miles to 117,000 miles
- Partner business class awards between the United States and the Middle East are increasing in cost from 104,000 miles to 130,000 miles
As you can see, as a percentage increase, some of these price hikes are significant. Nonetheless, Mileage Club continues to have competitive redemption rates, and on top of that, the program hasn’t had a devaluation in many years.
This doesn’t change my perspective on ANA Mileage Club
I’ve written in the past about what an intriguing program ANA Mileage Club is, and frankly this devaluation doesn’t change my impression. Why? Well, I previously thought the program just wasn’t worth using 99% of the time, and I continue to feel that’s the case.
Yes, ANA Mileage Club has great redemption rates, but the program is otherwise kind of a pain to use. Among other things:
- ANA Mileage Club only allows roundtrip awards, and not one-way awards (though you can have an open jaw); this greatly limits the usefulness of the program, since other airlines give you the flexibility of booking one-ways at half the cost of roundtrips
- ANA Mileage Club passes on carrier imposed surcharges, with the exception of flights on Air Canada, Air China, Air New Zealand, Avianca, Copa, and United
- ANA Mileage Club only lets you redeem miles for yourself or family members, including a spouse, and relatives within two degrees of kinship (so that includes cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc.)
- Transfers from Amex Membership Rewards to ANA Mileage Club aren’t instant, so you can’t find award availability, transfer points, and then instantly ticket, meaning you’ll typically have to make speculative transfers
- While ANA Mileage Club allows some online award bookings, complicated awards generally have to be booked by phone, and that’s a process
- Once you commence travel, you can’t change the routing of a flight, though you change the day and time of a flight, but you need 96 hours notice before departure
- ANA Mileage Club miles have a hard expiration policy of 36 months from when they’re earned, regardless of activity; this minimizes flexibility
Given how many useful frequent flyer programs there are, I just think ANA Mileage Club is more trouble than it’s worth. But that’s just me…
Bottom line
ANA Mileage Club is increasing award costs as of April 18, 2024. This is the program’s first devaluation in many years, and even with these changes, Mileage Club still has competitive redemption rates. That being said, I find this program too restrictive to be useful, so this devaluation doesn’t change my perspective on that.
What do you make of these ANA Mileage Club changes?
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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...
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
Does this apply to the Virgin redemption chart?
Overcrowded Tokyo lounges, very limited award space, lousy service on the ground…
Not worth it before this devaluation.
Absolutely true!
Agreed. The lounges are a mess. Service is spotty.
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. :(
Took about an hour, but Just booked LAX to Tokyo business class for 85,00 points. Thank you for the heads up on devaluation
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.
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.
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.
Couldn't agree more
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...
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.
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...
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!
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).
Oh no!
Anyways.
@Ben - Any word on whether ANA is increasing redemption rates for their RTW awards?
Nowhere near as catastrophic as TK. Phew. Hopefully they don't touch the round the world award.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
How does ANA expect one to prove degree of kinship??
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.
Considering how impossible awards are, they could up a FC award to 5,000,000 points with no impact to anyone.
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.
Wait... people actually got business awards tickets on ANA?
#foreverwaitlisted