On this publish I needed to speak a bit about Mileage Membership, the frequent flyer program of Japan’s Star Alliance airline, All Nippon Airways (ANA). I’d take into account this system to be fairly polarizing — on the floor, Mileage Membership has extremely profitable redemption charges, although this system doesn’t come with out some challenges.
So let’s take a big-picture take a look at this system. Must you take into account reserving your subsequent journey by Mileage Membership, or are there too many “gotchas?”
ANA Mileage Membership is an Amex switch associate
Presumably most OMAAT readers aren’t truly racking up many miles immediately with ANA’s Mileage Membership, so let’s first discuss how you can earn these miles. ANA Mileage Membership is switch companions with the Amex Membership Rewards program in the US.
This can be a distinctive characteristic of Amex Membership Rewards in comparison with different transferable factors currencies, as different applications don’t associate with ANA. There are in fact plenty of nice playing cards for incomes Amex factors. Observe that frustratingly, transfers from Amex to ANA aren’t immediate, and usually take two to a few days.
ANA Mileage Membership has wonderful award redemption charges
Merely put, the rationale you must care about ANA Mileage Membership is as a result of this system has actually profitable redemption charges, each for journey on ANA, and for journey on associate airways (together with different Star Alliance airways). ANA publishes award charts, all of that are for roundtrip journey.
Under you could find the award chart for worldwide ANA flights. These awards are zone based mostly, are bookable in all 4 cabins (together with in premium financial system), and there’s seasonal pricing.
As you possibly can see, this pricing is sort of profitable. For instance, you can fly roundtrip enterprise class from North America to Asia for 75,000-90,000 miles. In equity, the pricing isn’t that a lot better than by Virgin Atlantic Flying Membership, and discovering ANA award area will be actually robust.
Under you could find the award chart for associate airline flights. These awards are zone based mostly, and are bookable in three cabins (not together with premium financial system).
The redemption charges listed below are fairly nice, like with the ability to redeem simply 88,000 miles for a roundtrip enterprise class ticket between North America and Europe, or 104,000 miles for a roundtrip enterprise class ticket between North America and Africa.
There’s additionally an award chart for associate airline around the world flights. These awards are distance based mostly, are bookable in three cabins (not together with premium financial system), and permit as much as 12 sectors with as much as eight stopovers.
Having the ability to fly as much as 29,000 miles for 170,000 Mileage Membership miles in enterprise class, with eight stopovers, is a jaw-droppingly good worth.
The downsides to ANA Mileage Membership
So why isn’t ANA Mileage Membership probably the most talked about program on this planet, given these incredible redemption charges? Properly, there are some catches to concentrate on:
- ANA Mileage Membership solely permits roundtrip awards, and never one-way awards (although you possibly can have an open jaw); this drastically limits the usefulness of this system, since different airways provide the flexibility of reserving one-ways at half the price of roundtrips
- ANA Mileage Membership passes on provider imposed surcharges, apart from flights on Air Canada, Air China, Air New Zealand, Avianca, Copa, and United
- ANA Mileage Membership solely permits you to redeem miles for your self or relations, together with a partner, and kin inside two levels of kinship (so that features cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and so on.)
- Transfers from Amex Membership Rewards to ANA Mileage Membership aren’t immediate, so you possibly can’t discover award availability, switch factors, after which immediately ticket, that means you’ll usually need to make speculative transfers
- Whereas ANA Mileage Membership permits some on-line award bookings, difficult awards usually need to be booked by cellphone, and that’s a course of
- When you begin journey, you possibly can’t change the routing of a flight, although you alter the day and time of a flight, however you want 96 hours discover earlier than departure
- ANA Mileage Membership miles have a onerous expiration coverage of 36 months from after they’re earned, no matter exercise; this minimizes flexibility
Is redeeming by ANA Mileage Membership value it?
Whereas I really like the thought of ANA Mileage Membership, I don’t truly discover myself redeeming miles by this system fairly often, for quite a lot of causes.
For one, whereas the redemption charges look nice on paper, I discover they’re usually not truly that advantageous, between the provider imposed surcharges, the shortage of immediate factors transfers, the rountdrip requirement, and so on. Moreover, we by no means see bonuses on Amex factors transfers to ANA Mileage Membership, whereas we do usually see bonuses on transfers to different companions.
Let’s use a greatest case situation instance. Redeeming 88,000 ANA Mileage Membership miles for a roundtrip enterprise class ticket from Newark to Frankfurt on United with no surcharges is nice. However you can additionally e-book that very same award with Air Canada Aeroplan factors for 120,000 factors. There are sometimes switch bonuses to Aeroplan (within the vary of 15-20%), making the costs comparable. And that doesn’t even take into account that you could redeem on any Star Alliance associate with out surcharges.
Taking a around the world award for 170,000 miles in enterprise class additionally sounds wonderful. Heck, it could make an excellent weblog publish headline — “My Yr-Lengthy RTW Enterprise Class Award For 170K Miles,” or one thing. However then truly attempt to discover award availability for all these flights. After which attempt to e-book by cellphone. After which verify how a lot the gasoline surcharges are. After which see what occurs when there’s a schedule change. After which see what occurs if it is advisable change part of your journey.
So I feel ANA Mileage Membership is completely value being conscious of, however personally I simply don’t discover the incremental financial savings (if any) to be value all of the downsides. If all the things goes completely, ANA Mileage Membership is nice. But when life ever will get in the best way, or issues don’t go easily, you’ll in all probability be left fairly pissed off.
Backside line
ANA Mileage Membership is a novel frequent flyer program, which will be earned by Amex factors transfers. The excellent news is that ANA has extremely profitable redemption charges. The unhealthy information is… nicely, virtually all the things else.
For those who love geeking out with miles and factors and are affected person, completely take into account ANA Mileage Membership. However completely don’t strategy this program pondering that it’ll be the identical as reserving by Air Canada Aeroplan or American AAdvantage, for instance.
The place do you stand on ANA Mileage Membership? Superb, overrated, or someplace within the center?