The ANA award chart: fixed prices, one-way at last

The ANA Mileage Club award chart is the last great fixed-price chart in the Star Alliance, and since June 24, 2025 it finally books one-way. ANA publishes its prices in zone tables, has held them broadly stable since 2019 while competitors went dynamic, and prices premium cabins at levels that look like typos next to United’s dynamic rates for the same seats.

This guide covers how ANA’s 2 charts work, what the 2025 one-way change did and did not fix, the transfer paths that matter for churners, the surcharge and expiration catches, and where the chart’s value concentrates as of June 2026.

The 2 charts: ANA flights vs partners

ANA Mileage Club runs 2 separate award charts, and conflating them causes most booking confusion. The international flight award chart covers ANA’s own metal, prices by zone pairs and season (Low, Regular, High), and carries the famous round-trip economics. The partner flight award chart covers the 30-plus airlines ANA partners with, led by the Star Alliance, prices by total trip distance zones with no seasonality, and is the chart most US churners actually use.

Both charts share the property that matters: fixed published prices. When United wants 80,000 to 200,000 dynamic miles for a business class seat to Europe, the ANA partner chart prices the same Star Alliance seat from a fixed table that has moved once in 7 years. Fixed charts reward planning, and planning is the churner’s entire edge; the same logic drives the Hyatt chart on the hotel side.

The June 2025 one-way change

For most of the program’s history, ANA required round-trip bookings, full stop. That single rule kept a generation of US churners away: a one-way positioning need or an open-jaw itinerary disqualified the program entirely. Reservations ticketed from June 24, 2025 onward changed it: one-way awards became bookable on ANA and partner flights alike, from 6,000 miles for the shortest segments.

What the change did: opened ANA miles to every itinerary shape, halved the commitment size of a first redemption, and made the program testable without planning an entire round trip. What it did not do: ANA repriced round-trip premium awards upward in the same revision, trimming the round-trip discount that made the old chart legendary. The program traded its sharpest edge for flexibility, and on balance the trade favors churners, who value one-ways structurally.

Mixed-cabin one-ways carry 1 quirk worth knowing: ANA prices the whole award at the highest cabin flown. A long-haul in business with a domestic economy connection prices entirely as business, so position separately when the connection is cheap to buy outright.

Where the value concentrates

ANA’s own premium cabins to Japan. The international chart’s business and first class pricing to Japan, especially in Low and Regular season, remains among the best published values in the alliance, and award space on ANA metal opens reliably at the booking window’s edge. This is the redemption the program is famous for, and it survived the 2025 reprice in usable shape.

Star Alliance partner business class on the distance chart. Because the partner chart prices total distance with no surcharges on certain carriers, well-routed itineraries on United, Swiss, or Turkish price below what the operating carriers charge their own members. The pattern: check the ANA partner chart price against the operating airline’s own program before any Star Alliance redemption; the fixed table wins more often than intuition suggests.

Round-the-world awards. ANA still publishes a distance-priced round-the-world chart, a relic category competitors killed years ago. It books by phone, demands planning, and rewards it with pricing nothing dynamic can touch. Treat it as a graduation project.

ANA business class to Japan: what it costs

ANA prices its own business class from the U.S. to Japan at roughly 75,000 miles round trip off-peak, 85,000 regular and 90,000 high season. Most programs charge that much or more one way, which is why this is the redemption people build an Amex balance for.

If you cannot get ANA miles or the dates do not work, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club books ANA business class for about 52,500 points one way from the western U.S. and 60,000 from the central and eastern U.S. Virgin is a 1:1 transfer partner of Chase, Amex, Citi, Capital One and Bilt. Award space is the limit on both routes, so search first, then transfer. Confirm current pricing at each program.

Getting ANA miles: the Amex pipeline

ANA is an Amex Membership Rewards partner at 1:1, and that is the pipeline. Chase, Citi, Capital One, and Bilt all skip ANA as of June 2026, which makes the program a structural argument for holding MR-earning cards: an Amex trifecta feeding welcome bonuses toward a fixed chart is one of the cleanest earn-to-burn systems in churning. Marriott Bonvoy transfers at 3:1 with a 5,000 mile bonus per 60,000 transferred, a mop-up route for stranded balances.

Amex-to-ANA transfers post in roughly 48 hours rather than instantly, per long-running reports, and they are irreversible. The combination (delay plus no reverse gear plus ANA’s expiration policy below) writes the rule: never transfer speculatively. Find the space, confirm it holds, then move exactly the miles the booking needs.

The transfer pipeline as described in this section.

ANA against the alternatives, priced out

The decision churners actually face: the same Star Alliance seat is usually bookable through several programs, so which currency should buy it? Run the comparison 3 ways.

Against United MileagePlus. United prices dynamically and frequently lands 50 to 150 percent above the ANA partner chart for identical seats, with the gap widest in business class on peak dates. United’s compensations are no surcharges, instant Chase transfers, and same-day flexibility. The pattern that falls out: plan ahead through ANA, book last-minute through United. The full lineup is compared in the best United credit cards.

Against Aeroplan. Air Canada’s program raised 32 partner prices on June 1, 2026, with transatlantic business at 75,000 points each way in the affected band. The ANA partner chart frequently undercuts it on the same flights, at the cost of surcharge exposure Aeroplan avoids on most carriers. With both reachable from Amex MR, checking both before transferring is a 10 minute habit that regularly saves 5 figures of points.

Against cash via portals. A fixed-chart premium seat regularly returns 3 to 6 cents per point against the cash fare, multiples of the 1 to 1.5 cents portals pay. That ratio is the entire argument for learning a chart program: the calculator makes the per-redemption comparison concrete.

The honest caveat: every comparison above depends on award space existing, and space, never price, is the binding constraint on premium redemptions. A cheap chart with no seats prices infinity. ANA’s saving grace is that its own metal releases space predictably, which is more than most programs can claim in 2026.

Each figure appears in the comparison prose above.

The 3 catches

Fuel surcharges. ANA passes carrier surcharges through on its own flights and many partners, adding hundreds of dollars to some premium bookings. Surcharge-light partners (United among them) dodge it on the partner chart; ANA metal to Japan carries it as the cost of the cheap chart. Price the full cash-plus-miles total before celebrating a low mileage number.

36 month expiration. ANA miles expire 36 months after earning, period, with no activity extension. Transferred MR points inherit the clock. This is the sharpest expiration policy among major programs and the second reason speculative transfers are a mistake.

Household rules. ANA restricts award travel to the member and registered family, enforced at registration. The 2 player implications differ from US programs where anyone can fly on your miles; book accordingly.

Booking mechanics

ANA’s website searches its own flights and most Star Alliance partner space competently, with a calendar view that makes Low season hunting fast. Partner space that the site refuses shows up by phone often enough that a call is worth the hold time for complex routings, and the round-the-world chart books only that way. Holds exist on ANA metal in some cases; partner awards generally ticket immediately or never.

The planning loop that works: confirm space on the ANA site or by phone first, transfer MR second, ticket third, all inside a week. The 48 hour transfer delay means genuinely hot space needs a phone hold or a tolerance for risk; everything else accommodates the pipeline fine. For the wider context of when a transfer beats portal cash rates, the bonus value calculator and the complete guide carry the math.

One scheduling note that surprises people: ANA opens its booking window 355 days out and releases premium space in visible waves, with a reliable cluster at the window’s opening and another inside 2 weeks of departure as unsold cabins convert to awards. The mid-range months between those waves run thinnest. Plan a chart redemption either far ahead or genuinely last-minute, and treat the 3-month-out search as the hardest version of the game. Set a calendar reminder for the 355 day mark on any trip that matters and the whole system gets easier.

A first ANA redemption, step by step

The shape of a clean first run, assuming an Amex MR balance from a recent welcome bonus. Pick a target 2 to 8 months out, because fixed charts reward the planning window dynamic programs punish. Search the ANA site for award space on the route, in the cabin, on flexible dates, before touching the transfer button. Confirm the mileage price against the published chart and the cash-plus-surcharge total on the checkout screen.

Only then transfer: the exact miles the booking needs, no rounding up for someday. Wait out the roughly 48 hour posting delay, rerun the search, and ticket. If the space died during the transfer window, ANA miles still hold their value for 36 months against one of the deepest charts in the alliance, but the lesson stands: hot space on partner metal deserves a phone attempt at a hold before the transfer, and ANA’s own metal, with its steadier space release, makes the safer first target.

Common first-timer mistakes, collected from years of community reports: transferring before searching (the classic), ignoring surcharges until checkout, booking a mixed-cabin one-way that prices entirely at the premium cabin, and forgetting that the household rule limits who can sit in the seat. Every one of them is avoidable with the search-first habit.

Related guides

• The Hyatt award chart after May 2026: 5 tiers, new ceilings, same logic
• Award surcharges: when fees decide the redemption
• Finding award space: the search that comes before the transfer
• Virgin Atlantic sweet spots

FAQ

Does ANA allow one-way award bookings?

Yes, since June 24, 2025, on ANA and partner flights, from 6,000 miles for short segments. The same revision raised some round-trip premium prices, trading the old round-trip discount for flexibility.

Is the ANA award chart fixed or dynamic?

Fixed, published, zone-based, and broadly stable since 2019. ANA is one of the last major programs without dynamic pricing, which is what makes its sweet spots plannable months ahead.

How do I get ANA miles from credit cards?

Amex Membership Rewards at 1:1 is the route. Chase, Citi, Capital One, and Bilt do not transfer to ANA as of June 2026. Marriott at 3:1 works as a supplement.

What is the catch with ANA awards?

Surcharges on many carriers, a hard 36 month mile expiration, and irreversible 48 hour transfers. All 3 point to the same rule: transfer only against confirmed space.

Companion reading in the points cluster: the Hyatt award chart for the hotel-side fixed chart, and Chase transfer partners for the other side of the transfer map.

How do you earn ANA miles?

Transfer from Amex Membership Rewards, or move Marriott points to ANA. See our Amex transfer partners guide. Confirm current transfer ratios at the issuer.

How many miles is ANA business class to Japan?

About 75,000 to 90,000 ANA miles round trip from the U.S., depending on season, or roughly 52,500 to 60,000 Virgin Atlantic points one way. Confirm current pricing at each program.