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This is Part 4 of my series calculating the cost of award tickets using ANA miles. In Part 1 I priced out itineraries on Air Canada, ANA, Lufthansa, Singapore, SWISS, Thai Airways, Turkish Airlines, United and US Airways. In Part 2, I looked at Adria, Aegean, Air China, Air New Zealand, Asiana, Austria, Avianca, Brussels Airlines, Copa and Virgin Atlantic. In Part 3, I found the taxes and surcharges on partners: Croatia Airlines, EgyptAir, Ethiopian Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines, SAS, Shenzhen, South African Airways, TAM and TAP. In this installment, I found the taxes and surcharges for itineraries on ANA’s non-Star Alliance partners (I found Virgin Atlantic in Part 2 since it’s a popular carrier) including: Air Macau, Etihad, EVA (intra-Asian only), Hawaiian Airlines (inter-island only), Jet Airways and Qatar Airways.
ANA is a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards (transfers usually take about 48 hours) – which you earn on cards like the Premier Rewards Gold and the Platinum – and Starwood Preferred Guest (transfers can take up to a couple weeks), which makes it a very versatile program to maximize when it comes time to redeem some of those points for an award on a Star Alliance carrier or its other partners such as these airlines. Its mileage program is also distance-based, so you can find some award redemption sweet spots such as needing just 63,000 miles for roundtrip business class between the east coast of North America and Europe. See the whole partner award chart here.
Whereas ANA’s search engine pulls in almost totally up-to-date Star Alliance award availability, in order to find non-alliance partner awards, you actually have to call in to their award desk at 1-800-235-9262. You must already have a Mileage Club account, which you can sign up for here. To actually find awards and the taxes and fees on a particular itinerary, you need to have enough miles in your account to book it, which is why I hope that this series proves useful to some of you out there who want to know what you’ll be paying before committing to a points transfer.
To get a good cross-section, I looked at award availability for specific segments – both international and regional – so that I could find how much the taxes and fees would be for various routes on ANA’s partners in both economy and business classes. The fee structure is similar on many of these awards whether you’re flying from Chicago or New York to Doha, for example, so this is really just a cross-section from which to estimate what your taxes and fees will be on each particular carrier. By choosing which partner you fly carefully, you can save hundreds of dollars in taxes and fees. So look carefully if you’re considering any of these airlines.
AIR MACAU
Route: Tokyo (NRT) – Macau
Class: Economy
Miles Required: 22,000
Taxes and Fees: $164.10 USD
Route: Tokyo (NRT) – Macau
Class: Business
Miles Required: 43,000
Taxes and Fees: $164.10 USD
ETIHAD
Route: New York (JFK) – Abu Dhabi
Class: Economy
Miles Required: 60,000
Taxes and Fees: $681.60 USD
Route: New York (JFK) – Abu Dhabi
Class: Business
Miles Required: 90,000
Taxes and Fees: $1,027.60 USD
EVA AIR
INTERNATIONAL – these awards are not available to book now, but should be available once EVA formally joins Star Alliance in June. However, the agent was still able to price them out for me in her system.
Route: Los Angeles – Taipei (TPE)
Class: Economy
Miles Required: 60,000
Taxes and Fees: $350 USD
Route: Los Angeles – Taipei (TPE)
Class: Business
Miles Required: 90,000
Taxes and Fees: $350 USD
INTRA-ASIAN
Route: Taipei (TPE) – Hong Kong
Class: Economy
Miles Required: 20,000
Taxes and Fees: $85 USD
Route: Taipei (TPE) – Hong Kong
Class: Business
Miles Required: 38,000
Taxes and Fees: $105 USD
HAWAIIAN AIRLINES (Inter-Island only)
Route: Honolulu (HNL) – Kahului (OGG)
Class: Economy
Miles Required: 20,000
Taxes and Fees: $5.00 USD
Route: Honolulu (HNL) – Kahului (OGG)
Class: First
Miles Required: 60,000
Taxes and Fees: $5.00 USD
JET AIRWAYS
INTERNATIONAL
Route: Newark – Mumbai
Class: Economy
Miles Required: 65,000
Taxes and Fees: $1,117.77 USD
Route: Newark-Mumbai
Class: Business
Miles Required: 105,000
Taxes and Fees: $1,733.77 USD
QATAR AIRLINES
Route: New York (JFK) – Doha
Class: Economy
Miles Required: 60,000
Taxes and Fees: $511.70 USD
Route: New York (JFK) – Doha
Class: Business
Miles Required: 90,000
Taxes and Fees: $757.70 USD
Stay tuned for the next installment where I’ll be consolidating this information for all ANA’s airline partners into a comprehensive spreadsheet with estimates of taxes and fees to help you plot out your next award.
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