Hi everyone, I’m OneMoreDay. Starting today, I’ll be writing this blog together with ymlulu. It’s great to meet you all. My blog will mainly focus on points and miles redemptions, and I hope to discuss with everyone how to use points to improve the quality of our travel. Please bear with me, and feel free to point out anything I can do better.If you’re just getting into the world of credit card points, you can also take a look at this beginner’s guide to credit cards that I wrote. I hope it will be helpful.
One of the biggest recent developments in award travel is that ANA’s mileage program underwent major changes on April 12. The main change was on the redemption side: instead of pricing awards based on flight distance, ANA now prices them by region. Note that only round-trip or open-jaw awards are allowed; one-way awards are not permitted. Since the old chart is no longer usable, let’s set it aside and look at ANA’s new award chart:
What we care most about here are the mileage requirements for flights originating in the U.S. (Zone 6) and China (Zone 3). This chart shows the mileage required for departures from the U.S., where Y stands for economy, C for business, and F for first class:
And this one shows the mileage required for departures from China:
Contents [Hide]
Tip 1. Why choose ANA miles?
(1) For the U.S.-China round trips that many of us care about most, ANA requires fewer miles than all of the major competing programs. A 60,000-mile round-trip in economy and a 95,000-mile round-trip in business class are both very eye-catching. Let’s compare that with other mainstream mileage programs: UA requires 70,000 (80,000) / 140,000 (160,000) miles for economy and business, respectively; AA charges 70,000 / 110,000; Air Canada charges 75,000 / 150,000; and although Delta removed its award chart, based on data points it still appears to be around 70,000 / 140,000. Thanks to Star Alliance’s strong coverage in mainland China, this means that as long as award space is available, you can redeem from a small U.S. city all the way to a second- or third-tier city in China, and all of that costs just 60,000 / 95,000 miles.
(2) There’s also good news for those departing from China. Round-trip awards from Asia 1, where China is located, to Asia 1 or Asia 2 cost just 25,000 / 48,000 miles. So what places are included in Asia 1 and Asia 2? Simply put, it includes all of Asia except Japan, Korea, the Middle East, and the Russian Far East. Still hard to picture? From Singapore and Indonesia in the south, to the diving destinations of Guam and Saipan in the east, to the pearl of the Indian Ocean, the Maldives, in the west, and up to the five Central Asian countries in the north, this vast region offers abundant travel opportunities. No matter where you go, a round-trip costs just 25,000 / 48,000 miles in economy/business class. (Update on October 4: starting October 15, the award rate from Asia 1 to Asia 2 increased to 31,000 / 56,000.) With 48,000 miles, you can book an itinerary like this:
Depart from Beijing in Singapore Airlines 77W business class to the Lion City, enjoy some luxury in Singapore, then continue in Singapore Airlines business class to the honeymoon destination of the Maldives. After that, you can buy a low-cost carrier ticket to Bangkok for a side trip, and finally fly back to Beijing in comfort on a fully flat seat.
Tip 2. How do you redeem ANA miles?
No matter how attractive an award chart looks, it’s useless if you don’t know how to book with it. Today I’ll walk everyone through how to use ANA’s website to book the award ticket you want. First, go to ANA’s North America website, register an account, and log in. On the homepage, click “Award booking” to enter the booking interface, as shown below:
Once you’re in, the system defaults to “Economy Class round-trip.” Be sure to change it to “Other classes/iteneraries”. I’ll explain why later:
Then enter your information. For example, if you want to fly from Los Angeles to Shanghai first, and then return from Beijing to Los Angeles, you can enter that information and click “Search.” At that point, the outbound flight options will appear for you to choose from:
Here I chose a nonstop United flight for the trip to China. After clicking “Next” below, the available return flight options will appear for you to choose from:
I chose an Air China nonstop. Then after clicking “Next,” you can see the total miles and taxes/fees required:
As you can see, ANA redemptions for United and Air China economy flights either have no fuel surcharges or only very small ones, commonly referred to as YQ/YR.
What if you want a simple round trip instead of an open jaw? Very easy: just change the PEK above to PVG:
Repeat the steps above, and you’ll see the final result:
------------------------No Zuo No Die divider line------------------------------------------------------------------
So what happens if, right from the start, you enter airports or dates under “Economy Class round-trip”? Let’s try it. Using the same Los Angeles–Shanghai round-trip example as above, this is the interface you’ll see after entering:
At first glance, it actually looks much better than the previous search screen, because you can see whether award space is available within a 7-day window all at once. But after clicking “Next,” the results no longer show the UA flight we selected earlier:
I found that all of the flights shown included at least one ANA-operated segment. Then, if you casually select one outbound and one return flight, you’ll get the following error message:
This means the ticket cannot be booked on the website. The reason is that this flight crosses regions, so it cannot be issued online. You have to call ANA to ticket it, and you can also try politely asking the agent to waive the $25 phone booking fee for this reason.
Tip 3. Can ANA award tickets include a stopover?
By now, you probably already know how to use ANA’s website to search for simple open-jaw or round-trip award tickets. In fact, ANA allows one stopover on a round-trip or open-jaw redemption, so you can book an itinerary like this:
But rather ironically, the exact same itinerary errors out as soon as it includes an ANA-operated flight:
You can also redeem for award tickets that include EVA Air flights, but judging from the taxes and fees, ANA does collect EVA’s YQ:
So, can you actually find the legendary 95,000-mile round-trip? Based on testing, yes—and it can even include two open-jaws plus one stopover:
Wait, what is going on here?! The taxes and fees were so shocking I practically fell out of my chair. Weren’t the UA and Air China economy awards I booked before supposed to have no YQ? So what is this $331.18?! I nervously clicked the little arrow on the right, and sure enough, it really was YQ:
Then I checked ITA Matrix to see who was responsible:
As expected, it was good old Air China. How can premium-cabin awards be such a ripoff, right?! Of course, based on the cash price above, you can also do the math and comfort yourself with how much value you got from redeeming with ANA.
Tip 4. Can ANA miles be used for mixed business-class and economy-class tickets?
If you do not have enough miles but still want to try business class, you can book one direction in business and the other in economy. In that case, the miles required would be (60,000+95,000)/2=77,500:
But the annoying catch is that if either the outbound or return contains even one business-class segment, that entire direction will be priced as business class, regardless of whether that business-class segment is the transoceanic one:
Tip 5. What else should you watch out for?
Round-trip travel between China and the U.S. cannot route through Europe, or the booking will error out:
This is because ANA’s website rules divide the world roughly into three areas:
The award rule is that travel within the same area cannot transit a different area, and travel between two different areas cannot transit a third area. For example, the U.S. mainland and Hawaii are both in Area 1, so travel from the mainland to Hawaii cannot route via Japan (Area 2). Travel from the U.S. mainland (Area 1) to China (Area 3) therefore cannot route via Europe (Area 2), which is the third area in this example.
Tip 6. Summary
ANA requires fewer miles than other FFPs for round-trip redemptions between China and the U.S. as well as within Asia. Although most routes do carry fuel surcharges, they are still within a reasonable range, and business-class redemptions are especially attractive. However, after the system change, ANA lost some of its former strength as a great award-search tool. Most of the examples above were found on UA or AC and then ticketed through ANA, and most award space that these two programs can see will also show up on ANA. Since the system is still in its adjustment period, there are still many inconveniences, but we can look forward to a more user-friendly system in the future that could make ANA a standout star among frequent-flyer programs.
Tip 7. How can you earn ANA miles?
The first way is by flying, but ANA’s mileage earning rates can be pretty dismal, and many cheap Star Alliance economy fares do not earn at 100%.
The second way is through credit card welcome bonuses, where those of us in North America have a natural advantage. Friends in Japan can only look on with envy. That is because ANA miles can be transferred in from AMEX’s Membership Rewards points system and from SPG points. As for the most cost-effective way to earn those two kinds of points, it is through the welcome bonuses on the following two cards:
You can also build up points quickly with the AMEX Everyday Perferred (click here for details).
Related reading: