Many frequent flyer packages provide travellers alternatives to redeem factors for aspirational round-the-world itineraries. Whether you’re planning a visit with Aeroplan, British Airways Avios, Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, or some other program, you may leverage candy spots to craft the journey of a lifetime.
Perhaps essentially the most profitable program for planning a round-the-world redemption is ANA Mileage Club, the loyalty program for Japan’s All Nippon Airways. With ANA Mileage Club, you may plan an eight-stop round-the-world itinerary at a fraction of the fee you’d pay with different packages, whereas flying with a few of the finest airways on this planet.
Let’s check out this unimaginable candy spot, together with some examples of maximize this system to the fullest.
How to Earn Miles with ANA Mileage Club
There are two main methods for North Americans to rack up balances inside ANA Mileage Club: transferring from Marriott Bonvoy or American Express US Membership Rewards.
If you’re sitting on some further Bonvoy factors, you may switch them to ANA Mileage Club at an optimum ratio of 60,000 Bonvoy factors = 25,000 ANA miles.
Bonvoy factors are continuously earned by welcome bonuses on Marriott Bonvoy co-branded bank cards, such because the Marriott Bonvoy American Express Card or the Marriott Bonvoy Business American Express Card. Alternatively, you may switch Amex Membership Rewards factors at a 1:1.2 ratio.
If you decide to switch, the general image appears like 50,000 MR factors = 60,000 Bonvoy factors = 25,000 ANA miles. As you may see, incomes ANA Mileage Club miles this manner isn’t the simplest possibility, as you’re getting a really sub-optimal switch ratio for beneficial Amex MR factors.
A way more efficient technique to earn ANA miles is through US bank cards. ANA Mileage Club is among the many frequent flyer packages that accomplice with Amex US however not Amex Canada, providing Amex US cardholders the flexibility to switch their MR factors to ANA at a 1:1 ratio.
You can join US-issued MR playing cards, such because the Amex US Gold Card, the Amex US EveryDay Card, and the Amex US Business Platinum Card as a way to rack up Amex US MR factors, which then switch to ANA Mileage Club at par.
Furthermore, do not forget that when you’ve arrange a single MR-earning Amex card within the US, you may switch your Canadian MR factors to the US on the prevailing change price as soon as each 12 months as effectively.
The ANA Round-the-World Award Chart
Once you’ve earned ANA miles, you’ll want to grasp the foundations for redeeming them for a multi-stop journey around the globe.
Let’s start on the award chart, which reads as follows:
You add up the distances of all of the flights in your itinerary to seek out your Total Basic Sector Mileage, maybe through the use of a device comparable to Great Circle Mapper. Then, you search for that whole in opposition to the chart primarily based in your desired class of service (decided by the very best class of service of any flight in your itinerary) to seek out the whole variety of miles required.
The Rules
Together with the award chart, there are just a few routing guidelines to go over. These guidelines govern the way you’re allowed to piece collectively numerous flights right into a single itinerary, and importantly, they’re a little bit stricter than the opposite sorts of round-the-world awards on the market.
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Your journey should proceed in a single course: both eastbound or westbound. Furthermore, it’s essential to cross each the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans alongside your journey. This implies that the journey should be a “true” round-the-world itinerary, and you’ll’t simply cross the Pacific twice.
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There’s a rule in opposition to “backtracking”, though what precisely counts as backtracking appears to be as much as the judgment of the ANA Mileage Club agent serving to you guide the itinerary.
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For instance, an itinerary involving a Singapore–Perth–Bangkok turnaround must be high quality, although it appears like a fairly clear backtrack when plotted on a map, as a result of it’s a fairly cheap technique to get to and from Perth utilizing main Star Alliance hubs.
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On the opposite hand, one thing like Beijing–Addis Ababa–Singapore–Zurich would most definitely be stricken down below this rule.
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Your itinerary might have as much as 12 segments, as much as eight stopovers (wow!), and as much as 4 “ground transfers”.
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Among these eight stopovers, you may have a most of three stopovers in Europe and a most of 4 stopovers in Japan.
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The definition of a floor switch contains open-jaws, however crucially, airport transfers between co-terminals in the identical metropolis (like flying into Tokyo Haneda and out of Tokyo Narita) additionally depend in the direction of your allowance of floor transfers, not like the vast majority of different packages.
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The minimal journey length is 10 days, and journey should be accomplished inside one yr from the ticketing date.
A Few Examples
Let’s take a look at just a few examples for example the sorts of journeys you are able to do with an ANA round-the-world award.
1. A Classic RTW
Starting in Toronto, jump over to Zurich on Swiss through Montreal earlier than persevering with to Istanbul and spending just a few days there. Then fly to Tokyo, burn up a floor switch by flying into Narita and out of Haneda, and return to Toronto on Air Canada Signature Class.
We’re solely utilizing three stopovers out of our allowance of eight, and the whole distance clocks in at 17,209 miles. Looking on the award chart, we see that this could price us 65,000 ANA miles in economic system class or 105,000 ANA miles in enterprise class.
That’s a enormous low cost in comparison with the 167,500 factors that Aeroplan would cost for a similar journey, with 92,500 factors to get to Tokyo with a stopover in Istanbul and 75,000 to get again.
Clearly, there’s important worth to be discovered within the ANA round-the-world award if you happen to’re trying to go to each Europe and Asia in the identical journey. After all, even if you happen to have been changing Canadian MR factors into US MR factors in order that you can switch them to ANA Mileage Club, you’d solely want about 140,000 MR factors to make that occur on the prevailing FX price.
2. Eight Stops Around the World
This itinerary takes you to eight cities around the globe and provides you an extended-length stopover in every considered one of them: Seoul, Taipei, Singapore, Perth, Bangkok, Kolkata, New Delhi, and Istanbul. The whole distance clocks in at 24,997 miles, simply shy of the 25,000-mile threshold, and so this journey would price 100,000 ANA miles in economic system class or 145,000 ANA miles in enterprise class.
Again, 145,000 miles is an absolute discount. Even if you happen to have been to leverage Aeroplan’s stopover coverage, you’d wind up with quite a few bounds and a considerably greater price in factors.
With ANA, you pay fewer miles, and also you rise up to eight stopovers to play with to your coronary heart’s content material. What’s to not love?
3. Six Continents, ANA Style
To take this redemption alternative to essentially the most excessive, let’s burn up the total allowance of 12 segments and embark on a round-the-world journey to all six continents. You’d select eight of the eleven intermediate cities as your stopovers, with the remaining three cities being lengthy layovers of as much as 24 hours.
The whole distance flown is 37,929 miles, so that you’d pay 160,000 ANA miles in economic system class or 220,000 ANA miles in enterprise class.
Now, 220,000 miles is a steep value to pay; nonetheless, the flexibility so as to add as much as eight stopovers is just about unparalleled for travellers trying to make use of their factors to embark on audacious multi-destination journeys, particularly ones as large-scale because the pattern journey illustrated right here.
Taxes & Fees
When reserving by ANA Mileage Club, the quantity of gasoline surcharges you’ll pay varies in accordance with which Star Alliance airline you’re flying with. Certain airways, comparable to Lufthansa or Austrian Airlines, have excessive surcharges, whereas the vast majority of Star Alliance airways – together with a few of its finest enterprise class merchandise, like EVA Air, Singapore Airlines, and Turkish Airlines – levy extra modest or zero surcharges.
By selecting and selecting your airways fastidiously, you may wind up with an epic round-the-world journey in enterprise class whereas solely paying just a few hundred {dollars} in charges.
In addition, do not forget that sure nations and jurisdictions have rules that restrict the whole surcharges on any itinerary originating in that nation. Some nations have notably hefty taxes and costs, such because the UK Air Passenger Duty, and are finest prevented if you happen to’re making an attempt to take care of your finances.
How to Search and Book
In idea, looking for availability for ANA round-the-world awards would contain the identical set of reserving instruments as you’d use for Aeroplan awards, since they’re each accessing the identical stock on Star Alliance airways.
However, in the end it’s the provision you see through the ANA Mileage Club web site that dictates what ANA brokers can guide, so that might maybe be one of the best ways to go looking, or not less than to carry out a double-check after discovering house on Aeroplan, United, AwardLogic, or SkilledFlyer.
The steps concerned are typically the identical regardless of which search engine you utilize, although. Break the journey up into one-way segments and find availability on every phase one-by-one, then organize all of it into an itinerary that matches inside all the foundations outlined above.
Finally, you’ll want to provide ANA Mileage Club a name to get the reserving accomplished, as it could actually’t be executed on-line.
Keep in thoughts that ANA Mileage Club members have entry to much more award house on ANA flights themselves in comparison with accomplice packages. An ANA RTW award is due to this fact a superb event to check out ANA’s glorious long-haul enterprise class and even First Class merchandise.
Round-the-world awards can solely be booked over the telephone, and ANA’s brokers are typically well-educated on the foundations and can implement them strictly. On one hand, you may’t actually get away with a lot exterior the foundations, however alternatively the brokers are all fairly skilled of their dealings and can make your life simpler by telling you precisely why a sure itinerary isn’t legitimate.
Lastly, notice that ANA solely lets you redeem miles on behalf of your loved ones members and kinfolk, and never on behalf of anybody normally. There’s also have a household tree on their web site to indicate precisely which sorts of members of the family are eligible to make use of a member’s miles.
This will likely be an necessary level to bear in mind for these of you who would possibly journey with associates, colleagues, or different extra-familial companions – in that case, everybody would want to redeem miles out of their very own ANA Mileage Club accounts.
Conclusion
Combining an unbelievably beneficiant allowance of eight stopovers with a really pretty priced award chart, the ANA round-the-world award incorporates unimaginable globetrotting energy that’s simply ready to be loved by these of us who’re hungry for some unimaginable multi-stop journeys.
The solely actual draw back to this redemption alternative is the relative problem piecing collectively an itinerary with restricted award house. Furthermore, it’s positively essential to be taking part in the US bank card recreation if you wish to earn a significant stability of ANA miles for a round-the-world award.
If you’re in a position to make the journey work, you’ll be rewarded handsomely with a visit around the globe on a few of the finest airways within the recreation. Should you want any help discovering award house, you’ll want to get in contact with us for a Points Consulting session.
