[Last Chance To Book Before Devaluation!] Step Right Up: ANA Is Next Star Alliance Program To Devalue

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Update: This devaluation will go into effect at 11am ET tomorrow.

Say goodbye to the 88K round-trip or open jaw business class award to Europe, it will be 100K starting tomorrow at 11am:

Originally posted on 2/28/24:

Star Alliance partner redemption costs must be on the rise, as programs continue to devalue their miles.

ANA has long been a valuable, but quirky program.

• It’s one of the rare programs that requires round-trip or open-jaw travel.
  • There used to be a hack to use open-jaw travel, such as Newark to London and back from Nassau to Newark to get a ticket cheaper than a round-trip, but that was closed when ANA started requiring that the trip much start and end in the same zone. That meant you could do Newark to London and Paris to Chicago, but that wouldn’t drop the price of the ticket.
• You can only redeem miles for relatives.
• Points only transfer from AMEX and Marriott, and AMEX transfers can take 1-2 days.
• Miles expire after 36 months, regardless of activity.
• ANA also has a very valuable round-the-world award chart, though they charge fuel surcharges on most airlines, besides for notable exceptions like Air Canada, Air New Zealand, Avianca, Copa, and United.

Their award chart is being devalued on 4/18.

Below is what the Star Alliance award chart from North America (US49, Canada, and Mexico) will look like.

Devaluations also sting, but even after the devaluation, the pricing is still very good, if you can deal with all of their quirks. For example, business class to Europe is a bargain 88K miles round-trip today, but will go up to 100K after the devaluation. Business class to Israel is a bargain 104K miles round-trip today, but will go up to 130K after the devaluation. The hardest part can be the requirement to fly round-trip, as finding round-trip award space at the same time can be challenging.

You can lock in the current pricing through 4/17, Japan standard time.

Pricing is for round-trip travel, as that is required.

Notably, round-the-world pricing will not change. 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.

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, but then again, that was in an era of wide open first class award space and before we had kids.

The award chart for these is based on the total distance flown, as follows:

Have you used ANA for award tickets or a round-the-world award? Will you book any ANA awards before the devaluation?