boarding_pass

Hello, Japan-based FTers.

What's your recommended Japan-issued credit card that earns NH miles? Preferably the one with bearable English support.

Also, I have a Rakuten account, Edy included, and considerable amount of Super Points too, but it seems transferring points to NH miles is not that good?

Wasabi Tofu

Many Japanese blog sites discuss those issues.
IMHO, a general consensus is ANA VISA WIDE Gold card.

Sometimes, there is fa sign up campaign . However, bonus miles vary.
You will get additional bonus mile when you apply via (unfortunately only Japanese language) point sites (hapitas.jp, d-money.jp, chobirich.com etc.)

Another general consensus is:
You must have Sorachika card (ANA To Me CARD PASMO JCB) when you want to transfer points earned by points sites to ANA miles.
Conversion rate from Soraochika card to ANA miles is 1:0.9
Usual rate of other points site (e.g. Rakuten) is 1:0.5

A site (http://www.poitan.net/) provides search function for point conversion routes. Even a ridiculous route of JAL miles to ANA (and v.v.) miles exists.

Anyway, you had better learn Japanese

boarding_pass

Thanks Wasabi Tofu! As much as I want to understand all these Japanese sites comparing all credit cards, learning Japanese is next to impossible so let's take that as a constraint! ;-)

It's such a different world of credit card in Japan! Way less generous in terms of sign up bonuses - and is it usual that credit card annual fees are waived here? Not sure if keeping a card here is good just for the sake of earning miles.

And I also saw the trick of converting JL to NH miles! Funny and weird!

Wasabi Tofu

Some entry level credit card don't charge annual fee at all (permanently).
Rakuten card is one of them.


Ordinary credit card's convertion rate is 1 JPY to 0.5 airline miles.
Airline credit cards' earning rate can be 1 JPY to 1 miles.
To get this favorite rate, you have to pay some annual fee (usually, waived for gold card because of its higher annual fee).

And, when you purchase airline tickets from airlines directly by airline creidit card, its rate is 1 JPY to 2 miles.
Other than airline, at some store (e.g, seven-eleven, ENEOS gas staiton), rate is also 1 JPY to 2 miles.

So, ANA WIDE Gold card is good choice.


Correction

100 JPY to 0.5 airline miles
100 JPY to 1 airline mile
100 JPY to 2 airline miles.
...

mleung89

I am sure you mean 100JPY, not 1JPY.

Torode

As a similar option to the ANA Visa Wide Gold Card, the JCB version is also a good option. As I mentioned in another post, it's one of the few cards where you can earn miles charging Edy, which can end up giving you 2 airline miles for every 100 JPY used. A good option if you pay for a lot of day-to-day stuff with Edy.

In addition to the JCB, I also have the AMEX gold card, because it had a good (by Japanese standards) signup bonus of 36,000 points with simple minimum spend instead of the hoops the other cards make you jump through, and also AMEX's friend referral scheme is quite attractive.

sodaisei

..edited

kaka

Talking about which
if one were to get amc, and get the ana amex thru global transfer, would that be sufficient?(of coz, with 50000pp)

sodaisei

I applied for the ANA Superflyers JCB Wide Gold card! Hope they don't reject my application...

Torode

Good luck! It took exactly 7 days to get approved for my non-SFC version of that card. No confirmation phone calls, etc. Just email saying I was approved and card a week later. I hope you have a similarly smooth experience.

fp7100

Torode

It was 450,000 yen spend in the first 2 months for 36,000 miles. That was in early 2017. The current deal is 50,000 miles for 800,000 yen in the first 3 months. Pasted a link below to the conditions:
https://www.americanexpress.com/jp/c...amex0002974151
Other option is if you get a friend who already has the card to invite you. Then you get 30,000 miles for 500,000 yen spend in three months, and they get 15,000 miles for the intro.

sodaisei

Just a heads up as I got the SFC JCB Gold version and got the device needed to charge Edy with my mobile phone. Everything is great!

sodaisei

BTW, I was thinking recently about the "holy trinity" of frequent flyers credit cards in Japan. Can we agree on this?

ANA SFC, gives you Star Alliance Gold status.
JAL version of SFC, gives you the equivalent status.
AMEX Delta Gold Card, same as above.

With these 3 cards, are you some kind of semi god? I already have the ANA SFC and was thinking about getting the Amex Delta one, it is only 24,000Y per year and gives you Gold status...

Am I missing other cards? (Like the SPG one)

Torode

Traditionally I would have added the ANA To ME Card Pasmo JCB to any must-have combo of Japanese cards, because it offered the lucrative "sorachika route" where you could convert points from point sites such as G-Point at an 0.90 rate, but sadly that conversion route is being closed off at the end of March 2018. I think the SPG Amex is a good deal, considering it also gives you gold status for Marriot, which grants club lounge access at their hotels. For the Delta card, obviously you need to fly enough to justify the benfits and there is a lot of route overlap Ex-JP.