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ANA has long been a valuable, but quirky program.
Their award chart used to be incredible, though it was devalued last year. It still remained a Star Alliance bright spot.
The biggest drawback is that they require round-trip travel. With award tickets, I book one-way at a time for maximum flexibility for changes and cancellations. Plus, I often find availability for one-way, grab it, and keep my eyes open for availability in the other direction. That wasn’t possible with ANA miles.
Other quirks are that you can only redeem miles for relatives. Points only transfer from AMEX and Marriott, and AMEX transfers can take 1-2 days. And miles expire after 36 months, regardless of activity.
On June 24th, ANA will finally allow for one-way award travel at half the current round-trip rates.
There is a lot of value to be had in their award chart. Below is what the one-way Star Alliance award chart from North America (US49, Canada, and Mexico) will look like:
Business class on United and Star Alliance airlines to South America for 48K miles, to Europe for 50K miles, to Japan for 55K miles, to the Middle East or Central Asia for 65K miles, and to Oceania for 72.5K miles are all fantastic bargains!
With airlines like Air Canada and Lifemiles devaluing their rates for travel on United, ANA will become a lot more valuable when they start allowing one-way redemptions on June 24th!
In the sad news department, ANA will discontinue its extremely valuable round-the-world award chart.
Once upon a time, all programs offered a round-the-world award chart. I’ve only flown a round-the-world award once, but they sure are fun if you have the time to do it right! We flew around the world for a month back in 2010-2011 with American’s valuable round-the-world chart in first class, but then again, that was in an era of wide-open first class award space and before we had kids.
Those awards have largely disappeared in the years since.
You can book a round-the-world award with ANA until 6/23, though you can make changes to a booked award after that date. Beware that they charge fuel surcharges on most airlines, except for notable exceptions like Air Canada, Air New Zealand, Avianca, Copa, and United. While regular awards can be booked online, these can only be booked over the phone. You can have up to 12 flights and 4 open jaws on these awards, and you must cross both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans once. Read more here.
The round-the-world award chart for these is based on the total distance flown, as follows:
On 6/24, ANA will also devalue their award chart for traveling on ANA flights in high season, though those are often better off booked with partner miles, such as Virgin Atlantic.
Have you used ANA for award tickets or a round-the-world award?
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11 Comments On "ANA Will Finally Allow One-Way Award Tickets, Will Kill Off Round-The-World Awards; Mileage Bargains On United And Star Alliance Travel"
All opinions expressed below are user generated and the opinions aren’t provided, reviewed or endorsed by any advertiser or DansDeals.
You need to finish up the post the regular and this is why I always suggest keeping points in banks rather than transferring to airlines …
Nope, this is a big improvement in my book. Great way to book United awards starting 6/24!
Are you not concerned that the award space will disappear in the 1-2 days it takes for the transfer to go through?
It’s certainly a concern and one of the reasons I call it a quirky program.
But that’s also probably the reason they’re charging 60% fewer miles for some routes.
You’re suggesting that the entire pricing of the program- which is based primarily in Japan- is contingent on the speed of transfers from a single US credit card program? Interesting, could be.
Having said that- of course like everyone I agree it makes sense to keep your points in bank points these days, but it’s not THAT crazy to leave, say, the cost of one United ticket in ANA miles to get around the problem of the transfer time. Then you transfer in new ones each time you book. With 36 months expiration, it’s not THAT big of a risk that that’ll hurt you, and on a relatively small amount of miles.
Not quite.
AC/Lifemiles likely got on United’s radar due to the number of redemptions they were making, and were forced to devalue and not compete with United saver pricing.
ANA likely makes a trifling number of redemptions, due to the quirks mentioned in this post, and hasn’t been forced to devalue.
The 1-2 days to transfer, is a killer especially with limited award availability from United….
can you speak to them about making the transfers instant
Does ANA give more availability to their own award seats than to their partners (e.g. UA, VS…)?
Seems like its really just an international business class thing, for domestic economy there are still better options
Big bad change!!! I used a RTW ticket and it was awesome! There are so few bargains in FF miles, and this was the last remaining one. What a shame! I got to fly Singapore, ANA, and Turkish business class from JFK to Istanbul, on to Singapore, then started again in Hong Kong, back to Singapore, on to Bali, then to Tokyo, and then home to JFK.