FlyerfolioMiles and membership
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Status: checked against official sources; automated independent review

Part of ANA Mileage Club hub

GUIDE

How to use ANA award stopovers

ANA award stopovers would be the breaks in an award journey that ANA Mileage Club permits between the first departure and the final arrival. Conditions that decide whether a multi-leg award can be issued include seat and date restrictions, whose miles may be used, who may travel, and what must be paid before ticketing [3] [4] [6].

Facts checked: 18 October 2026

Key takeaways

  • The published rules instead govern issue: ANA may restrict award dates and seats, one member's miles fund one award, travellers other than the member must be registered in advance, and the traveller cannot be changed after application [3] [4] [6].
  • Taxes, airport facility charges and other necessary surcharges fall on the member or award user and must be paid before an award ticket is issued [3].
  • The membership rules checked apply to flights taken on or after 19 May 2026, and the Japanese text prevails where a translation is ambiguous or contradictory [3].

What the ANA pages publish, and what they leave out

The Mileage Club membership rules run to 30 articles covering joining, mileage accrual, mileage validity, award users and the use of awards [3]. They define an award ticket as a ticket supplied by ANA or by a partner airline [3]. They do not say how many flight segments such a ticket may contain, whether travel may break at an intermediate point, or how a surface segment between two airports is treated [3].

The award usage guidance follows the same pattern. It covers who may use an award, how miles are grouped and drawn down, and how an application is made, but it contains no stopover count, no open-jaw rule and no routing limit [4]. A separate page for award users deals with registering family members rather than with building an itinerary [6]. ANA's upgrade-award pages separate ANA domestic, ANA international and Star Alliance upgrades, giving conditions, mileage charts, application steps and change or refund rules for each, again without stopover or routing provisions [5].

Two provisions matter when a trip mixes ANA and partner flying. Where an award is used on a partner airline, the partner's own conditions of use apply, while the application, change, cancellation and refund of that award follow ANA's conditions [3]. If a partnership ends or changes, an award already issued keeps the validity it had when it was applied for [3]. Because stopover rules are programme-specific, the general concepts are set out separately in stopovers and open jaws.

Conditions that can stop a multi-leg award

Capacity and dates. ANA may set dates on which an award cannot be used and may limit the number of seats available for awards, and on some flights there may be no award seats at all [3]. ANA accepts no obligation to refund an award, return miles to the account, reduce a cancellation fee or extend an award's validity because of those restrictions [3].

One account per award. Miles held under different member names, or miles held in another airline's programme, cannot be combined into a single award [4]. Registered family pooling — ANA Card Family Miles for members living in Japan, or the ANA Mileage Club Family Account Service for members living outside Japan — does allow family miles to be combined, but only for ANA domestic award tickets, ANA international award tickets, ANA international upgrade awards, partner airline award tickets and ANA SKY COIN for members living in Japan [4].

Balance at application. The miles required for the award must already be in the account when the application is made [4].

Who may travel. Anyone other than the member must be registered as an award user before the award is requested, and the register is limited to the member's spouse or same-sex partner and relatives within the second degree, up to ten people besides the member [3] [6]. ANA may ask for documents proving the relationship [3] [6].

Changes after application. Once an award ticket or upgrade has been applied for, neither the traveller nor the account supplying the miles can be changed [3]. An award ticket and an upgrade award cannot be used together [3]. Award tickets also cannot be used where one person occupies more than one seat [4].

Miles, taxes and what happens after ticketing

Miles in an account sit in four groups with different expiry dates [4]. The miles needed are taken from those closest to expiry first, and where groups share an expiry date the order is group 4, then 3, 2 and 1 [4]. Miles remain valid until 23:59 Japan time on the last day of the month falling no more than 36 months after the month in which the qualifying service was used [3], and an award must be redeemed within the validity of the miles it uses [4].

Taxes, airport facility charges and other necessary surcharges arising from an award are borne by the member or award user, and the amounts needed to issue an award ticket must be paid in advance [3].

Miles for an award that is not used are not returned to the account and cannot be exchanged for a different award [4]. An award not used after application becomes invalid, although award tickets and ANA international upgrade awards are covered by an unused-award refund service [4]. The membership rules add that where an award is not used within its validity, ANA has no duty to return the equivalent miles or to provide a replacement award [3]. How the request itself is filed is covered in how to book ANA awards.

Exceptions and limits

  • Language. Where a translated version of the membership rules is ambiguous or contradicts the Japanese text, the Japanese text governs [3].
  • Editing the award-user register. Changing or deleting a registered award user costs 5,000 miles per person, waived where the change follows a family-register event such as a marriage or a death, for spelling corrections, and where the award user's customer number changes [6].
  • Identity checks. ANA may verify identity when an award is used; the member must carry the membership card and official identification, an award user must be able to show proof of the relationship, and ANA may refuse the award where identity or kinship cannot be confirmed [3].
  • Who applies. Applications are in principle accepted only from the member, and without the ten-digit Mileage Club customer number ANA will not accept an award application [4].
  • Disruption. For an award ticket on ANA, delay, cancellation and other irregular operations are handled under ANA's conditions of carriage and internal rules; for an award ticket on a partner airline the partner decides, and it may not offer the same onward routing or a change to another carrier [3].
  • Programme discretion. Beyond the membership rules, ANA may set the conditions that apply when an award is used, and members are expected to confirm them before applying [3]. Award conditions may also change without notice [4].

Sources

Sources checked on 18 October 2026. The four ANA pages below cover Mileage Club membership, award usage conditions, upgrade awards and award-user registration; because none of them publishes a stopover allowance, an open-jaw rule, a routing limit or a stopover fee, no such rule is reported here. Stopover rules for other airlines and hotel programmes are not covered.

  1. ANA Mileage Club membership terms and conditions (Chinese-language version), checked 18 October 2026
  2. ANA Mileage Club award usage conditions, checked 18 October 2026
  3. ANA upgrade awards, checked 18 October 2026
  4. ANA award-user registration, checked 18 October 2026