tl;dr – Amex is offering 30,000 Membership Rewards points for purchases of $2500 or more with All Nippon Airways. This is a great opportunity to reduce the ‘possible’ use of rewards points to immediate utility.
The Deal
Amex recently launched a set of new card offers, and there’s a pretty compelling one with All Nippon Airways (ANA). Let’s take a look:
Here are the terms and conditions:
Notice that your flight must originate in the US.
Three components determine the number of Membership Rewards (henceforth, MRs) points you’ll earn from this purchase and, consequently, the type of ticket you’ll be able to purchase for your return flight.
- The credit card you use to purchase your ANA flight(s).
- The fare(s) you purchase
- The airline you credit your flights to.
As we’ve established, you need to reach $ 2,500 in ANA flight spend to receive the 30,000 MRs.
Before we get into the potential bonus points that you’ll earn from your Amex card, it’s worth noting that the 30,000 MRs you’ll receive from this offer are ALREADY enough to redeem for a nonstop economy ticket back on ANA.
ANA operates nonstop service to 10 cities in North America: Honolulu, Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Chicago, Houston, Washington DC, and New York.
Whereas you need to buy a flight to Japan to trigger the offer, you are, of course, under no restrictions as to how you use the points you earn. (I’m specifically writing about this use of points to demonstrate how one would ‘complete their trip’ back from Japan just from this one offer.)
Now let’s take a peek at ANA’s Zone-based rewards charts:
If you’re flying back to the mainland, those 30,000 MRs are at least enough points to redeem for a nonstop Economy(Y) fare on ANA metal during low season (If you’re planning to fly to the mainland). If you’re planning to fly back to Hawaii, then you’ve already cleared the needed amount of points for a regular-season Economy fare (30,000).
While several other carriers offer much cheaper one-way nonstop fares from Tokyo to the US (Zipair, Delta, American, Hawaiian/Alaska), ANA’s fares are pretty pricey. At the minimum, a nonstop from Tokyo to the mainland US on ANA metal will cost you at least $1000 to Honolulu and $1788 to Vancouver or $1850 to Los Angeles (the two cheapest of all the North American mainland destinations).
So, without factoring in the credit card spend or where one might credit the earnings from the flight(s) you purchase to trigger the offer, you can already claim at least $1000 worth of value, and a floor of $1800 if you’re heading back to the mainland.
If that’s good enough value for you, then congratulations, you’re done!
If you’re on the search for more, then read on.
Credit Card Earnings
Now what about the credit card earnings? As this is an Amex offer, you’ll want to use a card that earns bonus rewards for purchases made directly with an airline (in this case, ANA, of course). The Platinum Card from American Express is the leader here – you’ll earn 5X on your purchase. Another choice is the Gold Card, good for 4X on your purchase.
If you spent exactly $2500 to trigger the offer, that would be 12500 (Platinum) and 10000 (Gold card) additional MRs. Factor those credit card rewards into the MRs you earn from the offer, and you’re sitting at 42,500 and 40,000, respectively.
Those amounts are good earnings from one purchase. And depending upon your situation, they could mean outsized value. For example, if you’re a family of four flying to Japan, and have two cards in your household that are targeted for the offer, you could purchase two fares on each card (which should be more than enough to trigger the offer), thereby netting you at least two ‘free’ return tickets.
Purchasing a Business Class Fare
If I were moving on this deal (and traveling alone), I’d opt to trigger the offer with the purchase of a business-class fare. In addition to being a great way (lounges, lay flat, catering) to fly to Japan, I’d easily eclipse the $2500 in one transaction, and I’d also earn a few extra MRs.
The cheapest nonstop business class ANA fare I could find from the mainland to Tokyo was $2978. If I round that to $3000, I’m earning 15000 (Platinum) or 12,000 (Gold) respectively.
There’s one more part to this that could increase your total points ‘earning’ from this offer, where you credit your flight. In reality, two options make the most sense if you’re starting from zero and your goal is to get as close as possible to a ‘free’ redemption fare – ANA and Aeroplan. For this next part, the assumptions here are: 1) you’re OK with waiting until you get to Japan to book your return flight, and 2) you’re willing to wait out closeout award availability. In that case, let’s see how much we’d earn from flying our purchased business class fare.
ANA makes it a bit easier as it has a calculator to help you determine how many miles you earn. I put in the JFK to Tokyo route. Looks like I’d earn just over 10,000 miles for a business class fare.
If we assume we’ll earn a similar amount with Aeroplan (and that we have no meaningful status with either carrier), then we’ll have 10000 miles/points credited to the frequent flier account of our choosing.
Putting it All Together
Ok, let’s recap. If you purchased a business class far with your Platinum card; credited the miles/points from that flight to either ANA or Aeroplan; then transferred the combined MRs (credit card earnings and 30,000 promotional points from the offer) to the same airline you credited the flight to, you’d have somewhere in the neighborhood of 55,000 points.
Let’s take a look at each program’s award charts.
Here again are ANA’s:
Here is Aeroplan’s:
In the case of Aeroplan, 55,000 points are enough for you to fly business class from Tokyo to Honolulu on a saver fare. If you chose ANA, you’d need 10,000 more points (maybe you have a few more MRs you can over!) to snag a low-season business-class ticket to Honolulu.
For a mainland business class return, you’ll be close, but a few points short, no matter which airline you choose. You’ll need 13,500 more miles to snag a low-season ANA business class fare back to any of ANA’s North American destinations (that are not Hawaii). An Aeroplan redemption will cost you 75,000, meaning you’d need an additional 20,000 points.
One benefit to choosing Aeroplan is that there are four major bank currencies that transfer to Air Canada: Capital One, Chase, American Express, and Bilt. Perhaps you have enough points between the four to make up the 20,000 difference.
Still, 55,000 points/miles is not a bad take-home.
Conclusion
The latest Amex deal with ANA is one of the more intriguing offers – it isn’t a statement credit – yet still delivers immediate value upon hitting the minimum spend. If you use the right credit card to purchase a premium fare, you’ll be a good portion of the way to the points needed for a business class redemption for your return.
