sodaisei

Hello fellow ANA flyers.

I am a Spanish citizen living and working in Tokyo. Because of my company rules, we fly JAL or ANA, and (unfortunately for me) since my boss prefers ANA and I have to fly with him most of the times this means I am stuck with this (extremely expensive) airline.

Anyway, In a couple of weeks I will become ANA Platinum (Star Alliance Gold). Lets assume I fly for business to the US in ANA 3 times per year (some times in premium economy and sometimes in Business, depends on the price of the ticket), fly to Thailand and China once per year in economy. All these flights are on ANA, usually on a fare that gives me 100% of the miles, so I can get a good number of miles every year.

Then I also fly once per year to Spain in economy with my wife. When I fly to Spain I try to fly cheap (because Christmas) but I realized that flying Star Alliance (in this case, Turkish) is not so expensive and will give me access to Lounges in Narita and Istanbul, which makes the trip easier.
Is there any other perks I am missing when flying Turkish to Spain being ANA Platinum?

I also fly for vacations to other destinies (Okinawa, Bali and/or Hawaii) but I tend to use LCC / cheap options, as I don't think it is worth to pay 2 o 3 万円 extra per plane ticket (me and wife) to get to a Star Alliance option.

As for credit cards, I have a normal JAL Card that gives me 1 mile per 100 yen, and a Rakuten Card that gives me 1 ANA mile per 200 yen.
I plan to get asap a normal ANA Card that would give me 1 mile per 100 yen spent. Also, since I will become platinum, I think that in case I cant make it to platinum again any other year, I can always get the Super Flyers Card and get Star Alliance GOLD forever as long as I have the card.

Actually, since ANA is not my best option (expensive, partner doesn't offer good connections to Spain) I was thinking of getting a ANA Super Flyers Card in 2 years to keep the Star Alliance GOLD status and then change to JAL as my biz trip hub (right now I cant, but after some years I will have more freedom to do so).

What do you think? Any other things I am missing?

joejones

The other big benefit of Star Alliance Gold is that you get priority boarding and priority check-in (access to a special counter) on all of the Star Alliance airlines.

You should consider using miles for your vacation flights instead of flying LCCs. Domestic award tickets tend to be quite inexpensive in comparison to what you would pay in cash for the ticket. That said, ANA is much more stingy than JAL with award availability. I've ended up exchanging most of my ANA miles for e-coins (or whatever they're called now) as that's the only way to get decent domestic flights around weekends and holiday periods. International award tickets are easier to snag, especially if you check all the Star Alliance partner carriers.

The other thing I've found is that it's much harder to get JAL metal to/from the US as they offer far fewer seats than ANA, especially in PY. If you switch to JAL, you might end up "roughing it" in AA economy on a regular basis because that's the only in-alliance option available.

sodaisei

Thank you for your answer!

I also noticed that my boss recommended me to exchange my miles for ANA Coins, however, I still don't really see the point. Do you get Miles for flights bought with ANA Coins?

The only place I would use awards to go inside Japan would be Ishigaki and Miyako, as any other touristic place (Okinawa, Fukuoka, Osaka and Sapporo) are covered well enough by LCCs.

I thought the best cost performance way to use my ANA miles was to go somewhere far away of difficult to get to (Australia, NY?).

I think this is what I will do: I will get an ANA Card. Next year I will be Platinum. If next year I can keep my status I will stay like that. In case I see I wont be able to make it, I will apply for a ANA Super Flyers Card to keep Star Alliance GOLD and then in 2019 I could try JAL and see if it is better for me.

Thanx!

armagebedar

Yes; Sky Coins are used as a currency to purchase flights, so the flights earn miles just as if you had bought them using cash. I do this fairly often since, as joejones mentioned, award availability on weekends is nonexistent unless you can book them two months in advance when the window opens.

sodaisei

Thanx! I see this useful nor 国内線, but I don't really see this being worth it for international awards, right? I mean, a business class international award is doesn't require many miles compared to how much it is in Yen.

Thank you

joejones

Yeah, you wouldn't use coins for international premium cabin awards.

Torode

Definitely. I regret using miles for domestic Japan travel considering the low value you get out of each mile. I recently booked Narita-New York award in ANA business and the value you can per mile is huge by comparison.

Also a small note on credit card choice, if you use convenience stores or e-commerce such as Amazon a lot, you might want to consider the JCB ANA gold card, because you can get 2 miles for each 100 yen spent if you use the built in Edy card for purchases.

sodaisei

Thank you, I actually use EDY a lot, but I cant find info on that 2 miles per 100 yen, could you send me some link?

https://www.ana.co.jp/wws/japan/e/lo...acard/ichiran/ here it shows the standard 100 yen per mile

Torode

Sure. There are actually three steps to getting this.

Firstly, the card you need to get is called the ANA JCB ワイドゴールドカード (http://www.jcb-card.jp/anacard/cp/?02117422402100)

This is one of the few cards (there are only three in total I think) that allow you to earn miles from actually charging your edy by credit card. Usually you only earn miles by using edy. You get 1 mile per 200 yen for charging.

Secondly, by using the edy built into the card, you get the regular 1 mile per 200 yen spent.

Thirdly, you need to subscribe to "ANAマイレージクラブ　モバイルプラス" through your smartphone at a pittance of 324 yen per month. This gives you an additional 2 miles for every 200 yen of Edy spend.

The result is that you end up with 2 miles for every 100 yen you spend using the Edy on the card. I bought an IC card reader for my PC (about 2,000 yen), which allows me to use the Edy to make Internet purchases through places like Amazon and Rakuten as well.

sodaisei

Thank you so much. I am totally doing this and buying the Edy reader!

ANAStarFlyer

If you encounter any hardships getting a Gold credit card in Japan as a foreigner, you should apply for the ordinary (blue) ANA American Express credit card and apply for SuperFlyers whenever possible. You've also probably seen a herd of American Express Japan staff marketing their products at Narita. If you have any issues with your application, you can speak with them - they're all quite helpful and many speak English.

sodaisei

Thank you.

I already have a standard JAL Card (which is supposed to be difficult to get for foreigners) so I am confident I will be OK. Actually I was looking for those credit card booths in Narita and Haneda and couldn't find any, so I will try to apply now that they have a special promotion.

joejones

Actually JAL Card is one of the very easiest to get for foreigners. It was my first Japanese CC.

sodaisei

That might be true but I remember a r /japanlife/ thread with a list of credit cards and difficulty for foreigners and JAL Card was pretty hard.
Anyway since I already have some time with a couple of credit cards I hope they give me the Supreflyers card.. already asked for the application documents.

CPH-Flyer

It really depends on your job and company. Sure if you are an expat with a global company, not a problem. But if you are a new graduate foreigner on a local contract, not that easy.