Between dirt-cheap rates to fly to Japan and back, 50,000-mile business class awards to Europe, and countless other sweet spots, ANA Mileage Club miles can be incredibly valuable. But transferring Amex points from cards like the American Express Platinum Card® is one of the only realistic ways to earn them.

That's why this news has us worried. Award Wallet was the first to spot that transferring Amex points to ANA Mileage Club is currently unavailable. On Amex's transfer page, the bank explicitly warns that transfers will be unavailable from Feb. 25 until next Monday, March 2 “due to planned maintenance.” 

 

amex transfer ana

 

Technology issues do, in fact, happen. Here's hoping this is just a temporary outage. Heck, maybe Amex and ANA will answer our prayers and find a way to make those transfers instant – the current 48-hour delay to transfer points is one of the few glaring issues with ANA's mileage program.

But the backdrop is what has us concerned.

This comes just a few months after bank after bank downgraded their transfer ratios to Emirates Skywards, dropping from the previous standard of 1:1 transfers to an inferior (and confusing) 5:4 transfer ratio. And what happened before that? An outage of a week or two, when transfers to Emirates weren't available with either American Express or Chase Ultimate Rewards … before the other shoe dropped. 

And it's not just Emirates. Cathay Pacific is set to follow next Monday, March 1, when transfers from Amex to its Asia Miles program drop to an identical 5:4 ratio. That at least came with a few months' warning. 

Losing ANA as an Amex transfer partner would be a massive blow, so … yeah, we're worried. However, an American Express spokesperson assured us that this is “just tech maintenance” and that “everything should be back up and running in a few days.”

We'll be waiting with bated breath.

 

Bottom Line

File this one under “news to watch … closely.” 

Transferring points from American Express to ANA Mileage Club is currently paused, apparently due to “planned maintenance.” Here's hoping that's all it is.