With low award rates and reasonable taxes and fees, ANA Mileage Club is one of our sleeper picks for the best airline mileage programs in the world, despite a handful of quirks. It's about to get even better … unless you're traveling to Japan over the peak summer or winter holidays … or want to fly all the way around the world using miles.
The biggest hitch with ANA is that the airline simply doesn't allow one-way award tickets – using miles, you'd have to book roundtrip. Not for long: Starting June 24, ANA will finally allow one-way redemptions – and not just for ANA-operated flights to and from Japan but even on Star Alliance carriers like United, Air Canada, or TAP Air Portugal. View from the Wing first spotted this important change.
And you won't pay a premium for booking a one-way flight with ANA miles, either – the cost of one-way award tickets will generally be exactly half of the current roundtrip rates:
- A one-way between the U.S. and Tokyo in economy will cost you as few 20,000 ANA miles (or 40,000 miles roundtrip)
- ANA business class starts at 50,000 miles each way (or 100,00 miles roundtrip)
- And ANA first class can be booked for as low as 75,000 instead of 150,000 miles roundtrip
- Booking United Polaris business class or TAP Air Portugal business class to Europe and back for 100,000 miles roundtrip is already one of the best deals – booking for just 50,000 miles each way makes it even better.
- Or book business class flights between the U.S. and Africa – even all the way down to South Africa – for just 65,000 miles each way!
But ANA's wonky award chart – the cheat sheet that spells out exactly how many miles you need for a flight – spells out different pricing tiers during low (L), regular (R), and high (H) seasons. Come June 24, travelers making their way to Japan with ANA during the high season will pay dearly:
- In economy, a roundtrip to Japan will jump from 55,000 miles to 72,000 miles, with one-ways half the price
- Premium economy redemptions jump from 77,000 miles roundtrip to 101,000 miles – again, one-ways are exactly half
- Business class between the U.S. and Japan increases from 110,000 miles roundtrip to 165,000 miles during the high season
- And an ANA First Class redemption vaults from 200,000 miles roundtrip during the high season to 300,000 miles roundtrip – or 150,000 miles each way
Here's a look at what ANA considers high season over the next few years.
Finally, ANA is killing off one of the best deals in the world of points and miles … albeit one that precious few travelers actually use. As of June 24, ANA's Around the World Tickets – which allow you to circumnavigate the globe in business class with Star Alliance carriers for 125,000 ANA miles, maybe even less – will be a thing of the past.
Round-the-world tickets been the ultimate White Whale of all things award travel for more than a decade, but there's just over two months to book them before ANA officially kills them off, as Danny Deal Guru first spotted. Then again, given how hard it can be to book business or first class flights these days, stitching together these eight- or nine-segment trips was hardly realistic anymore.
ANA is an Amex transfer partner and a fantastic way to use points from cards like the *amex gold* or *amex platinum* – even with a 24- to 48-hour lag between transferring points and when they actually hit your account. But this is the second devaluation in the last year – the airline raised award rates by as much as 33% last spring on many redemptions, whether you booked ANA or a partner award ticket.
Fortunately, this time, the hikes affect only ANA itself – and only during the busiest stretches of the year. In this case, the introduction of one-way bookings softens the blow.
The ability to book one-way gives travelers some critical flexibility, whether you can only find award availability for half of a trip, mix-and-match your mileage redemptions with another airline, or just want to ease the process of rebooking a trip if your plans change. Ninety-eight times out of 100, booking one-way tickets is the way to go – and it'll soon be a reality with ANA.
This move could be a game-changer for booking ANA business class, in particular. The airline has gotten so stingy with releasing award space – particularly if you want to book using miles from partner airlines like Virgin Atlantic Flying Club or Air Canada Aeroplan but even through ANA Mileage Club itself – that finding a flight more than one or two weeks in advance has become nearly impossible. Finding a flight home from Japan in order to round out a mandatory roundtrip booking makes it even harder.
Come late June, you'll have the freedom to book a precious one-way flight just as soon as you see it. That'll give the airline's handy new “International Award Calendar” tool even more power.
Bottom Line
ANA is rolling out the ability to book one-way award tickets using Mileage Club miles in late June, making one of our favorite mileage programs even better.
Come June 24, you'll be able to use ANA Mileage Club miles to book one-way award tickets – and not just on ANA itself but even on partner airlines. While that's paired with some drastic increases if you want to book ANA flights to or from Tokyo during the high season, I'd still call this a net win.
