ANA Mileage Club: Star Alliance Value for Asia-Based Travellers
All Nippon Airways runs one of the quieter loyalty programmes in the business. It lacks the flashy transfer bonuses and co-branded card saturation of the big US schemes, and for years it carried a structural quirk that frustrated experienced flyers: partner awards had to be booked as round trips. That constraint is gone. What remains is a programme with a fixed, published award chart, the full breadth of the Star Alliance network, and a handful of genuine sweet spots — rewards for travellers willing to learn the mechanics, especially those flying out of Asia.
The Round-the-World Award: What It Was, and Why It Is Gone
For years, ANA Mileage Club's round-the-world award was the programme's most celebrated feature. Members could book a multi-stop circumnavigation on Star Alliance metal — crossing both the Atlantic and the Pacific once, in a consistent direction — with up to eight stopovers and pricing tied to total sector mileage rather than a flat fare. For a certain kind of long-haul traveller, it was an extraordinary instrument, and a full business-class circuit often cost less than many programmes now charge for a single one-way redemption.
That instrument no longer exists. ANA stopped issuing new round-the-world award tickets as of 24 June 2025; the last day to ticket one was 23 June. Tickets issued before the cutoff remain valid through their expiry, but no new bookings are accepted. Any guide written before that date that presents the RTW as a live option is now out of date. It is worth saying so plainly, because the product still circulates in points-and-miles discussions, sometimes without the caveat.
What the discontinuation did not touch is the underlying value of the Star Alliance partner award chart, which remains zone-based and fixed.
The Architecture of the Partner Award Chart
ANA prices partner awards by geographic zone rather than by distance or market demand. The world is carved into broad areas — Japan, Asia (across several sub-zones), North America, Europe, Oceania, the Middle East, Africa, and so on. The miles required depend on which zones your origin and destination fall into and the cabin you choose. On ANA's own metal, season matters too; on partner awards it does not, so the price is the same in August as in February.
This fixed-rate structure is genuinely unusual. Most large US programmes have shifted to dynamic pricing, where award costs track demand and cash fares. ANA has not. You can look up the exact miles required before you start hunting for availability, which makes planning far more tractable.
ANA publishes the zone chart for partner awards on its website. Confirm the current figures directly at ana.co.jp before committing to any earning strategy; the chart is revised from time to time, and the June 2025 overhaul raised a number of round-trip rates.
The End of the Round-Trip-Only Rule
For most of its history, ANA Mileage Club required partner awards to be booked as round trips. A one-way redemption simply was not allowed, which forced awkward choices: if you needed only a single direction, you still had to price and book both legs, even if you meant to discard one or use another programme for the return.
That changed on 24 June 2025, when ANA introduced one-way pricing for partner awards at half the round-trip rate, with no surcharge for the convenience. It is a meaningful gain in flexibility. A traveller based in Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, or Kuala Lumpur who wants to fly Lufthansa to Frankfurt and return separately — on another programme, on a cash ticket, or not at all — no longer has to book a reciprocal leg.
For Asia-based members, the upshot is that ANA miles can now be deployed more surgically. You are no longer obliged to hold enough for both directions before you can book anything.
Star Alliance Sweet Spots from Asia
The most durable value in the ANA partner chart sits in business class on Star Alliance carriers to Europe and North America. Fixed pricing, combined with the quality of carriers such as Lufthansa, Swiss, and Singapore Airlines on long-haul routes, produces redemptions that compare well with most alternatives.
From Southeast Asian gateways — Singapore, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta — a business-class award to Europe can be booked on any Star Alliance partner at a fixed rate, round trip or, since June 2025, one way at half the cost. Exact figures move and should be checked against the official chart, but the structural advantage — no dynamic pricing, and no fuel surcharges levied by ANA itself — has been a consistent feature of the programme.
A word on surcharges: ANA adds none of its own to partner awards. Some partner carriers, however, impose surcharges that pass through to the member when the ticket is issued; Lufthansa-group carriers are among those known for it. Before booking, read the total quoted at ticketing, not just the miles figure.
Within the region, awards on ANA's own metal — to and from Japan, across Northeast Asia — carry seasonal pricing, with low, regular, and high seasons shifting the miles required. The low-season windows tend to fall in mid-to-late January, parts of spring, and late autumn, but the exact dates are published each year and worth confirming if your trip is flexible.
Stopovers, Open Jaws, and Routing Logic
On round-trip partner awards, ANA permits one stopover in addition to the destination — and, helpfully, this applies even to itineraries originating in Japan. Stopovers are not allowed on one-way awards. For a traveller based outside Japan, a Singapore-to-Europe business-class round trip can therefore incorporate a stop, say in Tokyo, for no extra miles, provided the routing rules are met and the itinerary does not backtrack illogically.
Open jaws are permitted too: you can fly into one city and return from another, so long as the two cities sit in the same country. Europe counts as a single country for this purpose under ANA's rules, as does the combined US–Canada zone. So Kuala Lumpur to London, returning from Paris, is fine; Kuala Lumpur to Frankfurt returning to Singapore is not a simple open jaw, because the two Asian cities would have to be treated as different countries.
Multiple Star Alliance carriers can share one itinerary. You might take Singapore Airlines from Singapore to Tokyo, ANA onward to Frankfurt, then Lufthansa within Europe. The flexibility is real — provided the routing stays directionally logical and avoids backtracking.
Earning Miles from Within Asia
This is where the programme's geography creates friction. ANA Mileage Club has a narrow set of transfer partners. The two that matter most are American Express Membership Rewards, which transfers 1:1, and Marriott Bonvoy, which transfers 3:1 — with a 5,000-mile bonus when you convert 60,000 Bonvoy points in a single transaction, so 60,000 Bonvoy yields 25,000 ANA miles, an effective rate of about 2.4:1.
Amex Membership Rewards is available in several Asian markets, not only the US, but whether you can use it depends on holding an eligible Membership Rewards card locally. Marriott Bonvoy is the more universally accessible route: it has hotel partners across Asia and co-branded cards in several Asian markets. The third path is simply flying Star Alliance and crediting to ANA — the programme has an extensive accrual network, and flights on Singapore Airlines, Thai, Air India, and other members can credit at the applicable rates.
ANA-operated flights earn at rates ranging from roughly 30% to 150% of flown miles depending on fare class, with some deeply discounted classes excluded entirely. Check the earning rate before crediting, particularly on cheap intra-Asia tickets.
Booking Practicalities
Partner awards have traditionally required a phone booking with ANA. The website handles ANA-operated awards comfortably but is less reliable for complex partner itineraries. Calling the contact centre — many members find the Japan line the most knowledgeable — remains the dependable route for multi-carrier bookings. It can be reached internationally and offers English service, though wait times vary.
Availability on partner carriers is released by each airline independently, and ANA can only book what those carriers make available. Lufthansa and Swiss tend to open business-class space closer to departure, sometimes within a couple of weeks. Singapore Airlines releases some space to partners but is selective. Turkish Airlines has, in recent years, been comparatively generous through Star Alliance channels. Searching across several partners and staying flexible on carrier gives the best odds.
One caution that catches people out: ANA miles expire 36 months after they are earned, and the clock does not reset with new activity. This is a hard expiry, unlike the rolling deadlines most programmes use. Because transferred points start the same 36-month timer the moment they land, it is usually wise to keep balances in Amex or Bonvoy until you have a specific flight in mind.
When ANA Mileage Club Is Not the Right Choice
The programme has real limits. Its transfer network is thin next to Amex Membership Rewards, Chase Ultimate Rewards, or even Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, which draws on its own bank partnerships in the Asian market. If you are building a balance from scratch in Asia without an eligible Amex card, without steady Marriott stays, and without regular Star Alliance flying, ANA miles accumulate slowly.
It is also poorly suited to spontaneous, short-notice trips. Partner availability is finite, phone booking adds friction, and the sweet spots favour long-haul. For short regional hops within Southeast Asia, the cost per segment is rarely as efficient as what KrisFlyer or Asia Miles offer on their home routes. And the hard, non-resetting expiry punishes hoarders: parking miles here "just in case" is a good way to lose them.
The round-the-world award, meanwhile — the feature that once made the programme genuinely distinctive — is gone. Anyone who built a strategy around it needs to plan differently.
The Honest Takeaway
ANA Mileage Club is not the easiest programme to maximise from within Asia. Its earning paths are narrower than those open to North American members, and its most celebrated product has been retired. What it offers instead is discipline: a fixed award chart, no dynamic pricing on partner redemptions, and access to the whole Star Alliance network at rates that, on long-haul business class to Europe, remain among the lowest on any published chart. The June 2025 arrival of one-way pricing adds welcome flexibility. For a traveller who flies Star Alliance regularly and can reach Marriott Bonvoy or an eligible Amex account, the programme deserves a deliberate place in a diversified strategy — not as a first wallet, but as a precision tool for specific long-haul redemptions.
ANA Mileage Club — Partner Flight Awards ANA Partner Award Zone & Mileage Charts ANA Mileage Club — Mileage Expiration Dates