thit_cho

Does anyone have experience transferring American Express Membership Miles to ANA. I have never flown ANA, nor am I currently a member of their frequent flyer program, but I would join if thereafter I can transfer 50,000 Amex miles and obtain a ticket from JFK to DKR (Dakar, Senegal). This seems to be a lot fewer miles than required on other alliances for a trip between the US and West Africa. Am I missing something? Will ANA permit me to transfer miles to an account that has no other activity? I'm not contemplating a trip to West Africa until 2008, at the earliest, but this would certainly help in my planning.

Michael

Patty

It does appear that only 50K miles are required for an economy award from the US to DKR through ANA.

I've never transferred to ANA myself but from what I understand, you can open an ANA account and transfer MR points without having any other activity. Reports on Flyertalk mention that it takes a few days for the transfer and as a general policy ANA doesn't allow holds on award reservations so there is a possibility that you may lose your award seat between the time you check and when the transfer is completed http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...ferrerid=18562

You may want to check the ANA and Amex forums on FT to see if there's any more recent experience. I'd also make sure your ANA account is linked to your MR account before you're ready to initiate a transfer.

If you decide to go ahead with this, I'd be very interested to hear about your experience.

thit_cho

Thank you. I would be very reluctant to transfer 50,000 miles to ANA unless I had secured a reservation. But, I don't expect to look into this seriously until 2008, so I have time to follow the thread on Skytalk. But, at least I know with planning, I can visit Senegal for 50,000 miles (and extend trip to Gambia and one or two of the Guineas).

cruisinred

I am not sure if the following will be of any use to you, but I came across a thread on flyertalk the discusses DL's rather broad (geographically misinformed?) definition of North Africa. Transfering Amex miles to DL might be another option for you.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=641960

thit_cho

Thanks, I have hundreds of thousands of Delta SkyMiles, but I believe they charge 80,000 for a trip to Senegal. Based on my research, the ANA offer permits the fewest miles from the US to Africa.

cruisinred

On a related topic, I was looking at the ANA awards website. Am I reading this correctly, that they count Portgual as Africa, and it is only 20,000 miles between Portugal and Zambia or Mozambique?

http://www.ana.co.jp/amc_e/guide/tok...air_16_hd.html

jasher

Hi Cruisinred,

I looked at the link and it certainly looks that way...but I'd ring them first before booking that flight. In my experience English translations of foreign language websites (especially Japanese or Chinese ones) are notoriously unreliable.

If it's for real, what a bargain that would be!

Cheers,
Julian