There are several ANA award changes announced, and overall I’d say there is more good than bad here given the hard-to-find partner award space.

Mark your ANA award calendars: June 24, 2025

That’s the date most of the new ANA award changes go into effect. The only one below that follows a different date is regarding lap infants. But let’s jump into each of the changes below.

ANA Round the World awards are going away

Arguably one of the biggest changes is the removal of the ANA award known as the ‘Round the World’ award. It’s commonly thought of as one of the best (theoretical) uses of your ANA miles. The main appeal was as its name implied: being able to travel around the world at a cost-efficient price. For what felt like a comparable price for what programs charge just between the United States and Asia these days, you could fly all around the world instead.

But you shouldn’t be surprised by it going away. There was no way it could persist at such a low rate compared to what others charge for a single transoceanic segment. Common sense would dictate to you that it’s unsustainable. It’s fine having competitive prices, but there’s no reason to be undercutting the market so significantly.

And remember that these awards should be thought of as a theoretical exercise. With so many loyalty programs making more award space available to their own members, it gets harder to use ANA miles to book partner awards. This ended up greatly limiting what you could do with your Round the World ticket. I felt like the award was more a reflection of how things worked about 5-10 years ago, and not what current trends suggest.

So while I’m sad to see the award go, I can’t say I’m surprised.

One-way ANA award pricing introduced

Finally!

One of the biggest annoyances of the ANA award program was the need to always book roundtrip awards. ANA has the most award availability 355 days in advance, but you’ll be sweating it out when you need to wait another day before you can book a legal return flight (that you’ll later change). It was a maddening experience, to say the least.

Or, let’s say you were just looking for a one-way in the first place, but the old rules forced you to book a cheap return. No one likes wasting miles, but that’s exactly what it felt like.

Well, no more. You can book one-way flights on ANA metal and one of the biggest pains goes away. Pricing for these awards is half the cost of a roundtrip.

Updated ANA award pricing

Let’s just jump right into the new award pricing before I share my thoughts on it. I’m only going to focus on the rate changes between Japan and other regions, but you’ll find all the details on ANA’s website.

You might be looking at some of those changes and thinking to yourself “man, those are some ugly increases“. And you would be right that the thing hit hardest is that high season category. But we’ve seen so many other award programs address this by changing to a variable pricing model, which impacts all awards across the board. Instead, we can just easily avoid those peak times (which you’ve been trained to do already) and still get excellent value for awards.

And yes, there are some other targeted increases, most notably in business class. But it’s still puts them in a competitive position with other programs. They didn’t completely demolish their award program to address their issues. Instead they maintained award charts and left most pricing unchanged.

Lap infant rules are changing for domestic Japan flights

Unlike the other changes referenced above, this one is changing for boardings starting May 19, 2026.

I’ve written before about the nuance of domestic Japan flights allowing two year old children to sit in your lap. Most other places in the world require children at age two to sit in their own seat. Well, that seems to be going away at least for ANA. As of now, JAL appears to still allow two year old children to sit in your lap on domestic flights.

What if there are changes to your ANA award ticket?

ANA’s website states what will happen if you make modifications to your award tickets.

• If you make a change to your award ticket, it might result in a new price.
  • No segments of the award ticket are flown –> any change will result in new pricing
    • If you don’t have enough miles in your account, the change cannot be processed.
  • Some segments of the award ticket are flown –> only seasonality changes will result in new pricing
    • Again, if you don’t have enough miles in your account, the change cannot be processed.
• If you waitlist for a flight and it clears after June 24, 2025, the new pricing will apply.
• Modifying a Round the World ticket after June 24, 2025 will still keep it as a Round the World ticket.

Suggested reading:

• Destination Spotlight: Osaka, Japan
• Japan Pro Tip: Luggage Delivery Services
• How to Get Internet While Abroad