One Mile at a Time beat me to the punch, I got an email last night from ANA that I didn't read and I saw a thread on Milepoint but I was pretty tired… Ben was more on the ball. So he posted about an All Nippon Mileage Club Survey offering 100 points. It’s 16 quick questions about their website and about social media.
The real value in the offer, as Ben points out, is that ANA has a great website to search for Star Alliance awards but that they’ve implemented a restriction requiring you to have some miles in your account before you can use the search tool without extra effort for a workaround. This should get you the 100 miles you need to save you effort down the road.
I really liked the first question of the survey, “Please tell us how often you access ANA’s website…” Me? Umm, a whole heckuva lot! I suspect I’m one of their all-stars. 😉
Earning free miles in the program is nothing to sneeze at, too, because collecting miles with them is quite useful. It’s an American Express transfer partner, for instance, with a distance-based chart so some real award values. And with Continental leaving the Membership Rewards program at the end of September it’ll be a program that many will investigate in particular for awards that have gotten very expensive under Aeroplan’s reward chart. Of course, ANA adds fuel surcharges to awards (except where the partner airline doesn’t have any) so that’s a downside. But online booking is easy, they have some good partners (like Virgin and Etihad) beyond the Star Alliance. And some awards are relatively ‘cheap’ like East Coast to nearer Europe and also to Israel.
Thanks Gary;
Would have never bothered without you explaining the real value of the 100 point! Mille grazie!
Cheers
Beachfan
Pardon my ignorance but I am a bit new to playing the mileage game and trying to learn more….what is the benfit of ANA versus collecting miles through a star alliance partner alone. I assume you can only use the miles seperately….
Thanks for your help
Thanks, Gary. I’ve got those miles to burn on UA, and this will help me search for awards on Star Alliance!
I didn’t see any note on when the miles would post…it wasn’t immediate.
Has anyone had these miles post?
Not for me yet 🙁
8/4 and still no miles…
and the survey is offline now
Sorry… newbie question:
What does “And with Continental leaving the Membership Rewards program at the end of September” mean?
Thanks
Anybody get these miles yet?
My 100 miles just posted today. Yahoo! No more going around the loophole…
Thank you!
When I followed up, ANA said it was targetted and I wasn’t eligible for the miles. Said the same on a second followup.
What a stingy, no-class approach. Whenever I’ve complained to any affinity program about 100 points, they’ve given it to me without blinking an eye.
Alienated a potential customer; wish I could call a do-over on the survey.
Checked by ANA balance today (09/10/2011). Lo and behold, 100 miles posted on 8/25!