ANA currently made major changes in its award chart this year. The airline is quietly tuning select redemptions and offers a new award chart that is even better in some areas and is now zone-based instead of distance based.

ANA made big changes to its award chart this year, which took effect on April 12. Just a few months later, the airline is allegedly preparing to select redemptions. Although award tickets to and from Japan will still require the same number of miles to the US, which is 50,000 miles for economy round-trip, 85,000 miles for business and 150,000 miles for first, the awards between several other regions are somewhat changing.

But luckily, there are still remaining gems on the current rewards, including the phenomenal rate of 88,000 round-trip in business class from North America to Europe, and a 104,000-mile round-trip redemption for business class from the US to Africa and the Middle East.

ANA, subsequently increased redemptions between North America and Asia 2, and made reserved boosts to the rates for North America to South and Latin America. Asia 2 covers much of Southeast Asia, including the following countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, British Indian Ocean Territory, Brunei, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

Meanwhile, South and Latin America includes many destinations, including some in the Caribbean, plus Bermuda. The Hawaii chart of Ana was also altered. Peculiarly, flights between Hawaii and Africa and the Middle East actually dropped from all classes of the service, while those in South and Latin America heightened drastically. Moreover, the awards to Oceania and Micronesia went down, which was purportedly expected. 

To date, these changes are seemingly not that dreadful for clients. In some cases, the rates actually improved. ANA remains an excellent option for Star Alliance redemptions because of its transfer partnership with Amex Membership Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest.

Meanwhile, for travelers who wanted to book with the old rates, book a flight by October 14 to take advantage of the previous flight rates. And if ever the desired award already dropped, book on or after October 15, instead.