Big changes coming to ANA’s Mileage Club program

It is that time of year where changes to frequent flyer programs are being announced in advance of the coming program year. For Japanese carrier ANA there will be significant changes to the accrual rates of points for flights operated by the ANA group. There are also changes to the earning rates depending on what credit card you might carry combined with your elite status level. Oh, and certain destinations will earn more elite qualifying points than others. It has become incredibly complicated from what I can gather.

Starting in April 2013 three fare classes – J, B and M – will see the earning rates improve. These are generally higher fares and it makes a bit of sense that they are getting better. At the same time there will be seven fare classes – P, V, W, S, L, K and T – which will see earning rates cut. The P fares are discounted business class seats and they will earn only 70% of the miles flown, down from the current 125%. For the cheapest economy classes the earning rate will drop to 30%. Here is a chart showing the old and new rates:

Beyond these changes there are also updates to the Premium Points earning rates, essentially earning levels towards elite status. Starting in January 2013 with the new charts all routes between Japan and Asia will earn 1.5x towards Premium Points; previously only flights to China had that 1.5x multiplier.

And then the credit cards come into play. Starting in April 2013 passengers who have elite status with ANA and who also carry the Gold or Premium credit cards:

If you don’t have elite status you can still earn big bonus points for carrying the credit cards, up to 50% for the ANA Card Premium. Oh, and there are both regular and "Super Flyer" versions of the credit cards; the latter gets more bonus miles, too:

Finally, the accrual rates for ANA Upgrade points will be changing. Currently members earn two upgrade points for every 10,000 Premium Points (a/k/a EQMs) in the prior year. The new program will have a sliding scale:

In pretty much every case the number of upgrade points earned will be increasing. That’s a good thing because the redemption rates for them are increasing, too.

Here’s the new upgrade award chart:

The domestic upgrades and lounge access rates aren’t changing. The others are all increasing. Due to the removal of first class cabins on the resort and Asia routes the ability to upgrade from business to first is going away. All of the economy to business class rates are going up by two points. The last business to first upgrade is increasing from 14 to 20. The above rates are all one way.

I believe that the changes are, overall, not too surprising. Certainly a significant devaluation for the cheapest fares but there are some give-backs on higher fares and on the upgrade points. Not the best ever, but I can definitely see how it could have been worse.