A Beginner’s Guide to All Nippon Airways (NH) ANA Mileage Club Miles

colin1898      2015-10-06     2017-09-15 32 Comments

As a member of Star Alliance and a five-star airline, All Nippon Airways (ANA) is generally considered as one of the best airlines in Asia and among Star Alliance.

ANA’s Frequent Flyer Program (FFP) is related to ANA mileage. TPG valuation of ANA’s mileage just amounts to 1.5c, maybe it’s due to it doesn’t like YQ or a round-trip flight between China and America. Personally speaking, TPG valuation should be about 1.8c, a little higher than 1.5c. For people who can easily obtain the silver card and the gold card of Star Alliance, such as UA, OZ and A3, the high-level Membership of ANA, including Bronze, Platinum and Diamond levels, are very hard to obtain, which is skipped in this post.

1. How to Earn ANA Miles

1. Flight tickets of ANA and other flights of Star Alliance, which is demonstrated in detail below;
2. Point transfer from American Express Membership Rewards to ANA with the ratio being 1000:1000. But you should pay attention to the time that point transfer needs. Two or three days can complete the point transfer from MR to ANA, while several seconds can finish the point transfer from AC and BA to ANA. If you transfer your points after searching the ticket, I think you should notice whether the ticket is still for sale as the point transfer is completed;
3. Point transfer from SPG Points to ANA with the ratio being 1:1. Similar to other transferable SPG points, every 20,000-point of SPG will send more 5,000 points. If you want to buy ANA points, I advise you to do so during SPG discount season;
4. ANA’s Co-Branded Credit Card. This is a bad credit card. Its annual fee is 70 dollars. By using the Campaign Code of CR2015, the first year annual fee can be waived. 5,000 points will be in your account as you open an ANA’s co-branded credit card and ten percent discount will be preferred as you buy things on ANA flights. Each dollar of all your expenses can accumulate one point. The single advantage of this card is that you can enjoy 10 percent discount in ANA Duty-free Shop in the Narita, Haneda, and Kansai Airports, which seems a little useful for people who like to buy a lot of things in Japanese airports. An application for this card almost requires no American credit history, which is a good choice for newcomers.

Let us talk about how to accumulate ANA miles through taking flights in Star Alliance in great detail. The chart below shows the accumulation of ANA mileages through ANA flights. If you take the P booking class in ANA’s business class with a discount fare, you can only get 70 percent accrual rate for ANA mileage, which rarely happens among all the other airlines. You can only accumulate 70 percent of flying distance through ANA flight tickets of the business class with the cost of several thousand dollars, which may demonstrate how narrow Japanese are. For example, UA and AC will accumulate 70 percent to 100 percent of flying distance for other classes, while ANA will accumulate only 50 percent, or even lower.

Mileage Accrual Chart for Star Alliance and other partner airlines is here.

The chart below shows the accumulation of ANA mileage through Air Canada, in which only YB in the economy class enjoys 100 percent accrual rate while other classes can not enjoy that. What’s more, P booking class in AC’s business class enjoys 125 percent of accrual rate, which surprises us！W and G booking classes in AC’s economy class enjoy 50 percent of accrual rate, which is basically the same as that of the main airlines. But the W and G booking classes in domestic airlines enjoy zero accrual rate, so mileage accrual from ANA to AC is relatively suitable.

The chart below shows the accumulation of ANA mileage through United Airlines (UA) flights. P booking class in ANA’s business class with a discount fare enjoys only 70 percent of accrual rate, while the P booking class of UA equals 150 percent of accrual rate in AC, which is twice the accrual rate of ANA. YBM enjoys 100 percent of accrual rate only in the economy class. AC and AV enjoy 100 percent of accrual rate in UA as the booking class is above W, while ANA enjoys only 50 percent of accrual rate in UA’s W booking class. What’s worse, L/K/G/N booking classes in the economy class can only enjoy 30 percent of accrual rate, while the same class can enjoy 50 percent of accrual rate in AC and AV, 100 percent of accrual rate in SQ.

The chart below shows the accumulation of ANA mileage through Air China (CA), in which only Y and W booking classes can enjoy 100 percent of accrual rate.

Apart from Star Alliance, ANA mileage can be accumulated through Air Macau, Etihad Airways, Hawaiian Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Garuda Indonesia, and Brazilian TAM, in spite of unsuitable accrual rate certainly. We can easily draw a conclusion from comparisons above that Don’t put your precious flying mileages into ANA.

2. How to Redeem ANA Miles

Now let us talk about mileage redemption. In April, 2015, ANA’s redemption is achieved by prevalent regional rule rather than by original flying distance. It should be noticed that ANA can redeem only round-trip flight tickets with one stay and one opening jaw, rather than one-way tickets. Compared to its mileage accumulation, ANA mileage redemption is a much more suitable choice among Star Alliance. Please look at ANA redemption chart first, including ANA redemption charts of Star Alliance flights and of its own flights.

2.1. Redemption Chart of Its Own Flights

ANA establishes a set of particular standards for redemption of Japanese flights, which will not be discussed in this post. ANA divides its own flights into three periods, including Low, Regular and High periods which require different mileages.The time division definition about Sino-Japanese, Japanese- American, and Japanese-European flying courses is posted as following.

The chart below describes mileage that ANA redemption of its own round-trip tickets requires. Three numbers represent mileage (k miles) that round-trip tickets require in the economy, business and First classes respectively, and two numbers represent mileage that round-trip tickets require in the economy and business classes. Mileage of 45k miles is the lowest mileage required among the economy class of all the Sino-American flying courses. ANA can redeem its own mileage ticket with one stay in Japan in its own Sino-American flight redemption system.

2.2. ANA Redemption of Star Alliance Flights

ANA has another set of charts used for its redemption of Star Alliance flights. Recently, ANA has made adaptions to flights whose date of issue tickets lies on/after October, 15, 2015. Flight tickets in many places become even cheaper than the previous redemption, while flight tickets in several places become more expensive. Since the original chart has been out of date, let’s look at the new chart together.

First, let’s look at the redemption chart with China being the departure place, which has many advantages. Redemption of round-trip tickets of the economy and business classes between China and America requires 60/95 respectively, while the redemption of Star Alliance flights requires 70/160 in UA, 75/159 in AC, 70/115 in AA, and 70/140 in DL. ANA redemption of round-trip tickets of the first class between China and America requires 180k, which ranks after AS and AA and is the same as AV. Actually this adaption has no effect on round-trip flight tickets between China and America. What’s more, the price of flight tickets between China and Europe drops  from 65/100/195 to 58/93/174. And a little drop also occurs in the price of flight tickets between China and Australia. We should praise ANA’s price cuts in popular flight courses these years!

Apart from Sino-American and Sino- European flight courses, there are several new advantages in ANA. For example, round-trip tickets inside Asia l , including Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Guam, and the Philippines,require 20/40/60. Namely, a round-trip flight ticket in the economy class of UA from Shanghai to Guam requires only 20. As AC inside Asia experiences depreciation recently, ANA provides us a perfect choice! Flight tickets departing from China (Asia 1) to all the places of Asia 2 require 31/56/93, which is the depreciation degree after October 15, 2015 dropping from the previous 25/48/75. As the depreciation degree in its economy and business class is not obvious, ANA seems not to simulate the crazy depreciation of AC. Asia 2 involves a large scale of spheres, from Indonesia to Thailand and from Singapore to Maldives. AC’s depreciation after December 15, 2015 highlights ANA’s advantages inside Asia. It should be noticed that Asia 1 and Asia 2 of ANA are larger than those of AC. For example, AC considers Maldives as a single area, and a round-trip flight ticket in the economy class of AC departing from China (Asia l) requires 50, which rises to 55 after December 15, 2015, while a round-trip flight ticket of ANA departing from China requires only 31.

Let us look at the chart departing from America, which has many advantages. Apart from the trans-Pacific course, ANA requires much less mileages than UA in terms of flights to Europe and Oceania. What you need to do is to redeem tickets of UA and AC flights. As to flights to North America inside, ANA has a worse cost performance than UA, AC and SQ. On October 15, 2015, only the flight tickets departing from North America to Asia 2 and to Latin America have a rise in price, which has almost no influence on students living in Middle America.

2.3. How to Search Award Tickets

First you should register a frequent flyer account on the ANA’s official website, then log in, click Awarding Booking in the lower right corner and you can search award tickets .

ANA has made this chart now based on regions instead of distances, which also brings about many IT bugs. Several days ago, it seemed that you could search round-trip tickets of only ANA flights on ANA’s website. And if you wanted to search round-trip tickets of Star Airline partner flights, you had to search through multiple cities. But now this bug possibly has been fixed. The interface of searching round-trip tickets is as following, which shows available flights in seven successive days. But if you search tickets through multiple cities, you can only know flights only on that date.

However, the big bug left seems not to be fixed. For example, if your flight departs from Asial Zone 3, flying through Japan Zone1, and arrives at North America Zone 6, the search result on ANA’s official website should be wrong. Because the official website can not control flights crossing Zones, you can only solve it by phone. Let us look at another example, a round-trip flight ticket from Shanghai to New York, which cannot be issued through the Internet due to its flight transfer in Tokyo. But if you only search ANA flights between China and Japan, or choose to transfer flights in Hong Kong to North America, there is nothing for you to worry about (thanks for Tung-Yu’s correction).

2.4. Notes

1. A round-trip flight ticket with mixed classes. For example, a round-trip flight ticket with one-way of business class and one-way of economy class requires mileages of 77.5k (60+95)/2=77.5k);
2. If ANA’s round-trip flight tickets cross the two of Low, Regular and High periods, an average value should be preferred according to the two periods above;
3. Each one-way flight ticket includes the business or first class, then this flight belongs to the business or first class;
4. ANA divides Asian-Oceania, Middle-East and Europe, and America into three major zones. Flights crossing one major zone is forbidden to fly through another major zone. Round-trip flight tickets inside each major zone is also forbidden to fly through another major zone.

3. How is ANA’s Fuel Surcharges (YQ)?

I don’t figure out this problem until now. Though TPG wrote a summary about ANA YQ long before, many changes have occurred to YQ recently. There is one clear point that ANA charges YQ not only to its own flights, but also to flights of TG, LH and SQ.

If you want to redeem flights of UA through ANA mileages, we search direct flights among America-China, America-South Korea, America-Hong Kong and America- Taiwan and find that only UA flights between Chinese Mainland and America cost no fuel charges, flights from America to Hong Kong charge a little YQ and flights of America-Japan, America-South Korea and America-Taiwan cost a certain amount of fuel charges (which amounts to about 200 dollars plus other expenses).

We are not very clear about other airlines and welcome you to report your DP. Asian – European courses charge YQ normally, while the major zone inside, especially domestic flights, possibly charge no YQ. Other flights crossing zones charge YQ. Now let us talk about several data points demonstrated below:

1. Flights of CA and OZ crossing Pacific flight course charge no YQ (business class)
2. CA’s flights between China and Europe charge YQ.
3. CA’s flights of Asia 1 and Asia 2 charge YQ, while flights inside Chinese    Mainland charge no YQ. But cross-strait flight route belonging to Asia 1 charge YQ.

4. Beneficiary to Tickets Issued

ANA cannot issue flight tickets for anyone, which is different from American and European airlines. A beneficiary should be added as one flight ticket is issued. You can only add nine beneficiaries at most and 500 mileages should be charged as you change your beneficiary ( except the condition that the beneficiary passed away), who must be your second-degree relatives which has been shown in the chart below. Generally speaking, only immediate family members and their spouses can meet the requirements of a beneficiary. However, it is said that ANA is not very strict in this aspect in actual practice.

5. Miles Expiration

Mileage should be expired after 36 months, which cannot be postponed. For example, ANA points transferred from MR on January 1, 2015 will be expired automatically on January 1, 2018. But the points transferred after January 1, 2015 will not be expired temporarily. The expiry date of ANA mileages cannot be postponed through account activities. Unlike airlines in North America, Asian airlines cannot infinitely postpone the expiry date through account activities. So are the points of Yawan Miles under Cathy Pacific, Eastern Miles under China Eastern Airlines, etc.

6. Conclusion

When should we use ANA mileages?

1. ANA enjoys amazing advantages over round-trip trans-Pacific flight routes, including China-America and China-Canada courses;
2. Round-trip flights inside Asia 1, including Chinese Mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines and Guam;
3. Flights inside Asia departing from Asia 1 to Asia 2, including Central Asia, Malaysia-Thai, Saipan and Maldives;
4. Round-trip flight tickets of the economy and business classes in UA and AC flying through America-Europe and America-Australia courses.

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