Background & Booking
Today I am going to write about how I used ANA Mileage Club to book Business Class tickets to Seoul from the United States with a stopover in Taipei. The long segments from the US to Taipei were aboard EVA Air and I flew Asiana Airlines for the short hops from Taipei to Seoul. All of these were booked on one ticket, as they are all part of Star Alliance.
The flights I booked and flew on were:
- EVA Air- New York (JFK) to Taipei (TPE)
- Connecting to Asiana Airlines- Taipei (TPE) to Seoul (ICN) (5 Nights Stay)
- Asiana Airlines- Seoul (ICN) to Taipei (TPE) (4 Nights Stay)
- EVA Air- Taipei (TPE) to San Francisco (SFO)
I booked this flight 11.5 months in advance with ANA Mileage Club and it took 3 days to transfer the points from American Express Membership Rewards. Because of the transfer delay, the original flights that I wanted were already booked, so I had to get crafty. Finding EVA Airways Business Class award space via partners like ANA is generally quite difficult, and your best bet is a little less than a year in advance when the calendars open up, or last minute like 2 weeks before departure. During my search it seemed that 2 seats would be open in advance, but checking currently for 2025, I am seeing mostly 1 seats, if any.
When I booked my March 2024 flights, the award ticket in all was 95,000 ANA Mileage Club Miles plus about $300 in taxes. I thought it was an amazing deal, but the non-instant transfer did cause me a lot of anxiety. ANA just hiked up their award charts, so as of April 18, 2024, my routing is now 130,000 miles plus about $375 in taxes.
Current ANA Mileage Club Booking Example
I’m going to be showing an example for booking a flight from San Francisco to Seoul, with a stopover in Taipei in Business Class.
Looking at ANA Mileage Club award charts, this will be a flight from “Zone 6” to “Asia Zone 2”, which costs 130,000 miles roundtrip in Business Class. Note, ANA Mileage Club redemptions have to be made roundtrip and you cannot do a one-way. ANA Mileage Club has a stopover program that allows one stopover and one open jaw, on the roundtrip booking. So, you could fly out of New York, but back to San Francisco, like I did.
Zone 6 consists of the United States (Minus Hawaii), Canada and Mexico, and Asia Zone 2 is South Korea. As you can see, Zone 6 is the entire US, so a flight from New York to Taipei, versus San Francisco to Taipei would be the same price, despite being further in distance.
How to Search for Space
If you want to try using ANA Mileage Club to book Business Class tickets, I’d search for flight availability on a site like Air Canada Aeroplan first. Below, we can see on Tuesday, April 29, 2025, there is 1 seat left in Business Class on two different EVA Air flights. As you can see below, Air Canada charges 75k for Business Class on this flight if you booked through Aeroplan.
Now, let’s look for the return leg. Looks like there is 1 seat in Business Class on EVA Air on May 7, 2025 from Taipei to San Francisco.
The flights from TPE-ICN and ICN-TPE are generally easier to find award space, and since they are so short, if there isn’t a seat in Business, you can choose Economy instead (but it’s not cheaper to do so).
So after we land in Taipei, we can hop on the 12:55 pm flight on Asiana from Taipei to Seoul in Business Class. We don’t have to fly EVA Air on this leg, since Asiana is a Star Alliance partner too.
After staying in Seoul for a few days, I found a May 2, 2025 flight from Seoul to Taipei in Business Class on the Air Canada Aeroplan search. This allows us to stay in Taipei from May 2-7.
Now, lets put everything we found with Air Canada on the ANA Mileage Club website.
Booking Through ANA Mileage Club
First, you’ll have to log-in or sign up for an ANA Mileage Club account to view availability. Then, we will do an award search and plug in the flights we found on Air Canada’s site.
Then, all the flights will pop up, and you’ll have to click through each segment. It will show as “Seats Available” if there is space, and it should match what we found on Air Canada.
Once you click through all 4 of the flights, you’ll get to the checkout page and see the flights and pricing.
As you can see, it’s 130,000 miles plus about $275 USD for the whole flight. Not a bad deal!
Things to Note
- Mileage can be refunded back to the original ANA mileage account with 3,000 miles as a cancellation fee. The taxes and fees will be fully refunded.
- ANA Mileage Club Miles do generally expire 36 months after you earn them. And there is no way to extend your miles’ validity or reinstate them once they have expired (except if you are a top-tier ANA Diamond Service member)
What About Booking Through Air Canada Aeroplan Instead?
As you can see from the screenshots above, you could also just book through Air Canada’s Aeroplan. A San Francisco to Taipei/Seoul flight would be 75k miles each way, plus about $100-200 in taxes. So this is 150k miles roundtrip. If you wanted to add a stopover, Aeroplan charges 5k miles extra, so 155k miles total. The fact that Aeroplan transfers instantly, to me, makes it more worth it because it would be very sad to transfer the points to ANA Mileage Club, and see the award space disappear. I’d pay the extra 25k Aeroplan points (155k vs 130k) to not have to worry about the transfer time. Though when I booked it before the award chart change, 95k was enticing enough for me to risk it.
Just note, Air Canada does charge by distance, so an EVA Air flight from New York to Taipei is 87.5k versus 75k for San Francisco to Taipei. In this case, ANA Mileage Club could be more worth it, as New York vs San Francisco price out the same.
The Verdict
Using ANA Mileage Club Miles to book EVA Air Business Class could be a good deal if you happen to be very lucky and find availability. Though the award charts have increased recently, in the example above, 130k in Business Class roundtrip from the US to Seoul with a stopover in Taipei is quite a good deal (though previously 95k). But, given that points don’t transfer instantly to ANA Mileage Club from credit card partners, I would most likely pay a bit more an book though a program like Aeroplan (150k roundtrip from San Francisco to Seoul, or 155k if you want to add a stopover), since transfers to Aeroplan are generally instant.
Have you booked a flight using ANA Mileage Club before? What did you book, and how was your experience? Comment below!
Cheers,
Ty
Have any questions? I’ve also started working with a travel agency, Fora Travel, and can assist in booking hotel stays or planning trips. Comment below or email me at takeofftotravel@gmail.com. You can also view all my other posts here! Thanks for stopping by!
