ANA Mileage Club is the loyalty program of Japan’s largest airline, All Nippon Airways. As a member of the Star Alliance, you can use ANA Mileage Club Miles to book seats on 25 other partner airlines in addition to ANA. Mileage Club miles can also be used to book seats on ANA’s 10 partners outside the Star Alliance. Notably, Etihad Airways and Virgin Atlantic are included partners.
Using a fixed award chart, ANA awards are predictable in price, but only a few seats are available to book with miles on each flight. The program also has a few quirks, such as they only allow round-trip flight redemptions, you will pay all fuel surcharges passed on by the airlines, and miles have a hard expiry date.
That said, their pricing is some of the most generous among modern loyalty programs, and they tend to release many award seats to Mileage Club members within two weeks of departure.
Let’s delve into the specifics of the ANA Mileage Club program with a comprehensive guide on how to earn and use your miles.
Acquiring ANA Mileage Club Miles
There are a number of ways to earn ANA Mileage Club Miles, including transferring from American Express Membership Rewards (US), signing up for the ANA credit card, flying on ANA or their airline partners, and transferring points from other loyalty programs.
Transfer from American Express Membership Rewards (US)
The best way to accrue heaps of ANA Miles is through American Express US Membership Rewards credit card welcome bonuses. American Express US is the only financial institution to partner with ANA Mileage Club, meaning you’ll want to stay in their good books if the ANA program is appealing. It is possible to get US credit cards as a Canadian so you’ll want to explore this opportunity if you are interested in ANA Mileage Club.
The transfer ratio from American Express Membership Rewards is 1:1, so any points you earn from popular Membership Rewards earning cards, such as the American Express Gold card (US) or the American Express Business Platinum card (US), are the best path to accruing a large amount of ANA Mileage Club Miles. The below US credit cards all earn Membership Rewards and should be considered if you are interested in ANA Mileage Club.
| Credit Card | Welcome Bonus | Net Value | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | American Express Business Platinum Card (US) | 150,000 Membership Rewards | $2,605 | Apply |
 | American Express Business Gold Card (US) | 90,000 Membership Rewards | $1,605 | Apply |
 | American Express Green Card (US) | 60,000 Membership Rewards | $1,170 | Apply |
 | American Express Gold Card (US) | 60,000 Membership Rewards | $1,070 | Apply |
 | American Express Platinum Card (US) | 80,000 Membership Rewards | $1,065 | Apply |
 | American Express Blue Business Plus Card (US) | 15,000 Membership Rewards | $330 | Apply |
 | American Express Business Green Card (US) | 15,000 Membership Rewards | $330 | Apply |
 | American Express EveryDay Preferred Card (US) | 15,000 Membership Rewards | $235 | Apply |
 | American Express EveryDay Card (US) | 10,000 Membership Rewards | $220 | Apply |
From time to time, there may also be a transfer bonus offered when converting to ANA Mileage Club, so keep an eye on our Miles and Points Transfer Partner Tool for those details.
One thing to note: all transfers from American Express Membership Rewards to ANA Mileage Club are advertised to take 96 hours, which can mean losing out on award seats. In practice, previous mileage transfers have shown up after 48 hours, but you need to be flexible as these miles expire 36 months after you transfer them.
There is no way to extend the expiration date on transferred miles, so ensure you have a plan in place before transferring. As a result, this is one program where we wouldn’t recommend speculatively transferring miles.
Sign Up for the ANA Card USA Credit Card
There is only one ANA co-branded credit card available, and it isn’t accessible for Canadians.
The ANA Card USA is a US credit card that is issued by First National Bank of Omaha and is a very weak value proposition compared to the American Express US cards mentioned above. While you certainly could sign up for this co-branded card, we wouldn’t recommend it. The average sign-up bonus is only 5,000 Miles, and it carries an annual fee of $70.
The card is designed for Japanese nationals who temporarily/permanently relocate to the USA. For example, the application has a mandatory field for “Type of Visa,” but you can select US Resident as an option. This card cannot be applied for with an ITIN, so it is out of reach to Canadians but they aren’t missing out as this card is sub-par.
I would perhaps only recommend applying for the card if you’re entering a “Most Obscure Credit Card” competition!
Flying on ANA or Their Partner Airlines
Crediting your flights to ANA Mileage Club would be the most painstaking way to rack up Mileage Club miles, and it is not recommended. As we mentioned in our Miles & Points Beginner Guide, earning miles through flying is the least effective and most expensive method. For example, one of our contributors Daniel flies 50+ revenue segments annually and accrues less than 10% of his miles and points through travel!
That being said, if you’d like to add a small balance to your ANA Mileage Club account, you can find all the earning ratios for fare classes on one of our favorite tools, Where To Credit. For example, when flying on a full-fare economy ticket (Y), you’ll earn 100% of the distance flown if credited to ANA Mileage Club but 150% of the distance flown if you credit that flight to United Airlines instead.
While it may make sense to credit to ANA Mileage Club if you are interested in only accruing those miles, it might not be the greatest value for your earned miles.
Transferring Points From Other Loyalty Programs
If you’ve used up all your American Express Membership Rewards points and suddenly have the urge to go to Japan (this is normal, and we wouldn’t blame you), you can transfer points from many hotel programs.
Similar to transferring from American Express US, the transfer will take some time, so don’t expect to jump on any last-minute availability. Reports indicate a minimum of 96 hours for transfers to take place from Marriott Bonvoy, with limited data points from other partners.
| Hotel Partner | Ratio |
|---|---|
| Marriott Bonvoy | 3 Marriott Bonvoy Points = 1 Mile (5,000 Bonus Miles for every 60,000 Points transferred at once) |
| Hilton Honors | 10,000 Hilton Honors Points = 1,000 Miles |
| World of Hyatt | 2.5 World of Hyatt Points = 1 Mile (5,000 Bonus Miles for every 50,000 Points transferred at once) |
| IHG One Rewards | 10,000 IHG One Rewards Points = 2,000 Miles |
| Shangri-la Circle | 500 Shangri-la Circle Points = 500 Miles |
The most appealing option is transferring from IHG. Usually, IHG points are worth $0.005 USD, so a stash of 250,000 IHG Points would be worth $1,250 USD if redeemed directly with IHG. If transferred to ANA, it’s reasonable that you could redeem those now 50,000 ANA miles plus a 50,000 point transfer from Amex USA for a round-trip flight on ANA’s The Room business class, which is worth considerably more than $1,250 USD.
You can also indirectly transfer American Express Canada Membership Rewards points to ANA via Marriott Bonvoy, but as you’ll be waiting a while for those points to land in your Mileage Club account, you’ll need to be ultra flexible.
Using Amex Canada’s 1.2:1 Marriott Bonvoy Point ratio and the 5,000 Bonus Miles for 60,000 Bonvoy Points to ANA, you would turn 50,000 Membership Rewards into 25,000 ANA Miles. This is not a great transfer ratio, but if you’re hesitant to get into US Credit Cards, this would be the path of least resistance.
Buying ANA Miles directly from ANA, as most other carriers offer, is not currently possible.
Redeeming ANA Mileage Club Miles
ANA Mileage Club miles can be redeemed for flights on ANA and their partners, ticket upgrades, extra baggage allowance, and even car rentals. You can also redeem miles for Amazon and Macy’s gift cards, but of course, we highly advise against this.
Redeeming ANA Mileage Club Miles for Flights
Redeeming your ANA Miles for flights is the best way to maximize their value. However, you’ll unlikely end up with a stash of these by mistake. Even if you hoard them, they’ll quickly disappear as they have a hard expiration date of 36 months with no way to extend that expiration date.
Compared to most programs, ANA still operates its award flights solely on an award chart without any unruly fluctuations, as we see with Air Canada Aeroplan’s dynamic pricing. While this does create predictable pricing, it also means miles can be hard to use if you’re inflexible on travel dates or destinations. If the flight you’re looking for is unavailable, there’s no way to pay extra cash or miles to buy that seat.
An important factor to note when searching for award flights is that some carriers within the Star Alliance charge exorbitant fuel surcharges. Unlike Aeroplan, when booking through ANA Mileage Club you are on the hook for all of them, but sometimes ANA can still be the best deal despite the extra cash cost. Airlines that don’t pass along fuel surcharges are:
- Air Canada
- Air China
- Air New Zealand
- Turkish Airlines
- United Airlines
If you’re going to redeem ANA Miles for someone other than just yourself, it’s important to know that you can only buy a ticket for family members with two degrees of separation, and you have to prove the relationship.
I highly recommend adding your spouse/parents/children when you create your account to avoid any problems in the future. Creating loyalty accounts the moment before you transfer miles can lead to complications, and it’s one of the most common miles and points mistakes to avoid. You can go through the registration process here.
This feature probably keeps ANA’s mileage cost more reasonable and also explains their good last-minute availability. Unfortunately, there can be too much of a good thing, and ANA no longer releases their unsold seats to partners within two weeks of departure. It may come back eventually, but ANA implementing this strict booking policy keeps mileage brokers at bay.
Once you’ve registered all the travelers, you must log in to your mileage club account to search for flights. After this, you’ll select Flight Awards, as you can see below, and click Award Reservation.
This will bring you to a somewhat intuitive screen, where you should select “Compare seat availability +/—3 days.” This will allow you to search for flights one week at a time, and it’s reasonably intuitive compared to some other search engines, even though it looks ancient, just like ANA Business Class on the 787.
One of my favorite features is the ability to quickly plug in a recent search from your search history. You can search for round-trip or open-jaw itineraries in the upper left corner. If you’re wondering what an Open Jaw itinerary is or what ANA defines as an Open Jaw, they’ve answered that question!
After inputting the cities you’re looking to travel between and hitting search, you’ll be met with a screen that looks like this. Note that you must search for flights with a boarding time of at least 96 hours from the booking time.
As an aside, when searching routes that ANA doesn’t operate, the +/- button becomes more valuable as the search engine won’t show waitlisted flights.
Somewhat frustratingly, the dates that list seats available still show waitlisted seats. Waitlists with ANA are like a black box. Even if there are unsold cash seats, it’s unlikely ANA will book those tickets for waitlisted Mileage Club members.
Use these arrows to quickly browse through days. Eventually, you’ll find flights without the “Waitlisted” tagline.
Once you find flights that are not waitlisted, you may get other options for Star Alliance awards, or what ANA calls Award Type 2 in short form. You can combine Award Types but still pay the higher price. Similar to a mixed cabin itinerary with Air Canada. Speaking of mixed cabin awards, you’ll want to read through the full itinerary, as the long haul portion here is in Economy Class.
Scrolling a little further, we see a rather creative routing the search engine has devised. I find the ANA engine to be pretty smart, and in this case, you could probably change your search to an Open Jaw and fly from Seattle to Osaka with a ground transfer to Tokyo—kind of like a reverse positioning flight!
If you can connect a return journey on United, the fuel surcharges would be significantly reduced, but these are rare. On average, you’ll pay between $450 USD to $600 USD per passenger in fuel surcharges, but considering that ANA is cracking down on partner availability, it’s a necessary evil. If you’ve started into US Credit Cards, there are occasional US American Express Offers that lessen the sting of these hefty fuel surcharges.
ANA Mileage Club Award Chart
The ANA award chart significantly changed in April 2024 and now requires more miles for the same flights. They still offer some of the best pricing if you can piece together a round-trip or open-jaw itinerary. Their award chart operates similarly to that of Air Canada Aeroplan, but the way it is described is perplexingly complicated. You start by selecting the zones you’re traveling to and from.
Then, you’ll cross-reference the dates to determine if you’re traveling in the Low, Regular, or High season. In practice, though, the difference is only 10,000-20,000 miles round trip, and the availability of flights will likely play a more significant factor in which date you travel. You can view the differences in seasonal pricing here, under the heading “Seasonality Charts”.
Finally, you’ll head to the Required Mileage Chart and select which dropdown applies to your trip. Remember to look on both sides of the “and”—for example, if you are traveling from North America to Hawaii, you’ll select the 5th drop-down menu. ANA also refers to Business Class as C rather than the industry standard J. You can view these mileage charts here, underneath the heading “Required Mileage Charts”.
ANA Mileage Club Flight Redemption Sweet Spots
The best sweet spots for ANA are any trips to Japan, even though they have high taxes and fees. You can fly from anywhere in North America (even the East Coast) to Japan for 100,000 miles round trip in low season. The price only moderately increases to 105,000 and 110,000 in regular and high season.
Flying to Europe on carriers that limit fuel surcharges is also a great deal. Conversely, an extremely sour spot is flying to Europe on carriers that don’t limit fuel surcharges.
While you pay fewer miles, the fuel surcharges will be excessive. Lufthansa Group airlines (SWISS, Lufthansa, Austrian, Brussels, and Eurowings) are the worst offenders, while LOT Polish is not so bad.
Other ANA Mileage Club Redemptions
While other ways exist to use your ANA Mileage Club miles, we strongly recommend against redeeming them for these alternatives. Their value in such redemptions is notably diminished compared to the value you’d get from using them for flight rewards.
Redeeming ANA Digital Coupons is quite a limiting option as the only retailers applicable are located in Japan. Macy’s and Amazon Gift cards are available at 12,000 points for a $100 e-gift card. You could also use miles to pay for extra or overweight baggage, but the cost is nearly the same as an upgrade from Premium Economy to Business Class.
When using miles to upgrade an ANA flight, it’s not possible to upgrade from Economy to Business as you can only bump up one fare class. You must have a Premium Economy ticket, and for a transpacific flight, the number of miles required starts at 25,000. It’s unlikely there will be a sale on Premium Economy tickets, where this is a better deal than booking directly into business, but it’s an option to consider.
You could also try your luck with a Star Alliance upgrade using ANA miles, but there are a number of disclosures on the ANA website relating to availability. When upgrading a transpacific or transatlantic flight from Economy to Business, you’ll need to fork over 30,000+ miles. That’s a lot of points to transfer into a frequent flyer program without guaranteed use!
ANA Mileage Club Premium Status
ANA Mileage Club members can earn elite status which grants additional benefits based on the level earned. The ANA Mileage Club program has three levels of status: Bronze, Platinum, and Gold.
You must collect Premium Points based on mileage, fare class, and other factors to achieve the different ranks. You must acquire at least ½ of your Premium Points by flying ANA-operated flights, so unless you frequent Japan a lot, it’s unlikely a North American-based traveler could achieve a meaningful status.
As with other loyalty programs, you must reach these thresholds within one calendar year before being reset to zero on January 1st.
Benefits of ANA Mileage Club Status
ANA Premium Status unlocks a range of perks spanning earning rates, flight benefits, airport amenities, and services applicable to ANA flights and those operated by Star Alliance airlines. Reaching ANA Platinum status will earn Star Alliance Gold privileges, which include access to Star Alliance lounges worldwide.
Frequently Asked Questions
ANA Miles are worth about 2 cents per mile, but you need to be flexible otherwise, there’s a risk your miles will expire before you have an opportunity to use them.
Yes, ANA Miles expire 36 months after you earn them. You can extend their life by converting to SkyCoins, but this significantly devalues the Miles, and SkyCoins are hard to use so we don’t recommend this method.
You can change an award redemption up to 96 hours before departure, but only its date or time, not the carrier or route. There are no fees to pay for a change, however cancellations will cost 3,000 miles.
Customers can expect point transfers to take between 48-96 hours when transferring to ANA Mileage Club.
You can redeem ANA Miles for flights, ticket upgrades, extra baggage allowance, and even car rentals. Flights are the most valuable and recommended redemption, though.
Posts About ANA Mileage Club
Review: ANA Business Class (787) ANA Business Class on the Boeing 787 is a bit retro, but the dining and service experience is one of the best. See our review for more details.
Review: ANA The Room Business Class (B777-300ER) ANA’s “The Room” business class offers privacy, an outsized entertainment console, and high-quality food and drink. Check out our recent review!