There is one great airline award sweet spot that I haven’t had the opportunity to book for myself yet, that I really want to do. It isn’t flying Singapore Suites or The Apartment on Etihad. In fact, it’s not even first class at all (don’t worry, it is still business class). I love this award because of the extreme value and the opportunities involved. You can fly around the world, in business class, stopping in up to eight cities, for as little as 105,000 miles per person.
Introducing the ANA “round the world” award
ANA, a star alliance member based in Japan, is one of the few airline programs that maintains an RTW (“round the world”) chart. Even better than just having a chart is that it is a great value. The number of miles required is based on the total distance of the flights you’ll be taking. I’ll get into the rules in a bit, but here is the basic chart:
| Total Basic Sector Mileage | Required Mileage | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Economy Class | Business Class | First Class | |
| 4,001～7,000 | 38,000 | 63,000 | 90,000 |
| 7,001～9,000 | 43,000 | 68,000 | 100,000 |
| 9,001～11,000 | 55,000 | 85,000 | 120,000 |
| 11,001～14,000 | 60,000 | 90,000 | 140,000 |
| 14,001～18,000 | 65,000 | 105,000 | 160,000 |
| 18,001～20,000 | 75,000 | 115,000 | 180,000 |
| 20,001～22,000 | 85,000 | 125,000 | 200,000 |
| 22,001～25,000 | 100,000 | 145,000 | 220,000 |
| 25,001～29,000 | 120,000 | 170,000 | 260,000 |
| 29,001～34,000 | 140,000 | 200,000 | 300,000 |
| 34,001～39,000 | 160,000 | 220,000 | 340,000 |
| 39,001～44,000 | 180,000 | 270,000 | 390,000 |
| 44,001～50,000 | 200,000 | 300,000 | 450,000 |
You can ignore the first few rows as I have no idea how you would get around the world in under 7,000 miles. I think the sweet spots are from 14,001-22,000 miles. These would allow you to see quite a bit of the world instead of just taking the most direct route around the globe. It also starts getting a bit mileage expensive after that point.
ANA RTW rules
There are, however, a number of rules that you’ll need to be aware of when booking these awards:
- You must fly either east to west or west to east. Backtracking is forbidden.
- You must cross both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
- You must touch each of the three “areas” according to ANA:
- Americas (North America, Central America, South America and Hawaii)
- Europe, Middle East, Africa
- Japan, South Korea, China, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Southwest Pacific
- Up to 12 segments and four ground transfers are allowed.
- Up to 8 stop-overs (ground transfers and airport changes will count as 2 stop-overs) are allowed.
- Flight must be operated by ANA or Star Alliance members.
- Trip must span at least 10 days.
- You must return to the “area” of your original departure (but not necessarily the same city or airport).
The only rule that really makes this type of itinerary difficult is the “no backtracking” rule. This tends to make Australia and New Zealand a lot more inconvenient to get to, but not impossible.
Besides the rules listed above, there is one other consideration. You will be responsible for paying taxes and surcharges on these flights. The best way to keep your costs down is to fly on airlines with low or now surcharges.
Getting ANA Mileage Club miles
ANA Mileage Club is not as well known as most US based frequent flyer programs, but there are still a number of credit cards that can help you build up your points balance. The best partner for this is American Express Membership Rewards (MR), Amex’s main point currency. Points can be transferred at a 1:1 ratio from American Express to ANA. Cards that earn MR’s include:
- American Express Personal Platinum
- American Express Gold
- American Express Everyday Preferred
- American Express Everyday
- American Express Business Platinum
- American Express Business Gold
- American Express Blue Business Plus
The other option is to transfer Marriott Bonvoy points. These transfer at a 3:1 ratio with a bonus of 5,000 ANA miles when you transfer blocks of 60,000 Bonvoy points. Both Chase and American Express offer Marriott Cards:
- Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant Card from American Express
- Marriott Bonvoy Business Card from American Express
- Chase Marriott Bonvoy Boundless
How to book the award
First you’ll have to find award space on each leg. This is where an experienced award booker can be a huge benefit. If you want to give it a shot yourself, I find that using Aeroplan’s website to search for award space works best, and then search ANA itself for their own flights. First, you’ll search each leg independently to confirm award space, then write down the date, time, airline and flight number for each segment. You’ll also want to use Great Circle Mapper to calculate the distance for your itinerary.
As soon as you’ve built your award, you’ll want to transfer your miles to ANA. This usually takes two days. However, availability may disappear between when you transferred and when they arrived so this is where being flexible is a huge advantage. You may have to adjust your dates slightly or visit a different city, but there will always be something available.
Once you’ve built your entire itinerary, you’ll then call ANA directly to book. You’ll need to inform the agent the you are booking a “Round the World Ticket” and feed them the details for each segment. Agents can search for these segments as well, but it is a lot easier if you have your entire itinerary built before you call.
sample itinerary
This is just a small taste of what you can do as there are almost an infinite number of routes available. I confirmed availability of all of these flights, in order, on random days in the future.
- Seattle (SEA) to Tokyo (NRT)-Stopover #1
- Tokyo (NRT) to Singapore (SIN)-Stopover #2
- Singapore (SIN) to Bangkok (BKK)-Stopover #3
- Bangkok (BKK) to Delhi (DEL)-Stopover #4
- Delhi (DEL) to Cairo (CAI)-Stopover #5
- Cairo (CAI) to Istanbul (IST)-Stopover #6
- Istanbul (IST) to Venice (VCE)-Stopover #7
- Venice (VCE) to Lisbon (LIS)-Stopover #8
- Lisbon (LIS) to Newark (EWR)-End
This routing is a total of 19,091 miles, which will then cost 115,000 ANA miles plus surcharges and taxes to book.
final thoughts
This is a great way to see a lot of the world flying on some of the best business class products around. Try putting together a routing with a few places on your bucket list. If you need help booking an ANA RTW (or any other award), or just need a little help to get started collecting points for your next trip, contact Peak Award Booking and we will get you there!