ANA Mileage Club (Amex MR points transfer partner) charges only 50K miles each way to travel in business class between the US and Europe, and this redemption works best with the least taxes on a few European airlines (e.g., TAP Portugal and LOT Polish).
ANA Mileage Club Award Booking Rules
- Amex MR points may take 2-3 days to transfer to ANA (1st transfer takes the longest time and subsequent transfers are quicker).
- One-way award bookings are allowed and free one-way stopovers may be available on certain routes.
- ANA taxes/fees are similar between economy and business class bookings.
- Taxes/fuel charges are low (<$150) ONLY on ANA, United (except to Japan), SAS, Air Canada, Air China, Avianca, Copa, Ethiopian, TAP Air Portugal, LOT Polish, Eva Air, Air New Zealand, and Singapore Air.
- Taxes/fuel charges are moderate ($200-300) on Asiana, Egypt Air, South African, Thai, and Turkish airlines.
- Taxes/fuel charges are extremely high (>$1000) on Lufthansa, Swiss, Brussels and Austrian airlines.
- Award ticket date changes are permitted without a fee up to 24 hours before departure (must maintain the same routing and type of award).
- Award booking Cancellation/Redeposit Fee is 3,000 ANA miles per person.
- ANA miles expire after 36 months irrespective of activity.
Free one-way stopover within Europe for 50K miles
ANA Mileage Club lets you book a free one-way stopover for the same number of miles, and the jump in taxes remains reasonable as long as you fly the same airlines within Europe. For example, continue using TAP Portugal or LOT Polish for the European connections (see the booking examples below). You may encounter an error message while attempting a few routes so patience is necessary.
Booking Example 1: LOT Polish
Step 1: Look for the 2026 summer LOT Polish business class availability from the US on seats.aero
I ended up choosing JFK to WAW after finding several nonstop flights (see image below).
Step 2: Look for LOT Polish nonstop flights to other European cities in the same timeframe
I chose WAW to Vienna for this booking example (chose to stay 1 night in Warsaw).
Step 3: Choose “Multiple cities/Mixed classes” search after logging into ANA Mileage Club
1st leg: JFK to WAW
2nd leg: WAW to Vienna
Step 4: Choose the flight for destination 1
It is important to choose nonstop flights (see image below).
Step 5: Choose the flight for destination 2
There were two available nonstop options but only one of them was business class.
Step 6: Review the itinerary and complete booking
Taxes will be around $120 USD for this one-way business class US to Europe booking with a free stopover (see image below).
Booking Example 2: TAP Air Portugal
I followed the same steps as described above and was able to secure a free one-way stopover in business class on TAP Air Portugal (see images below).
Error messages when booking one-way stopovers
I encountered an error message after slightly changing the travel dates, despite all the available connecting flights (see images below).
Conclusion
I keep exploring for interesting booking redemptions since the ANA Mileage Club revamped its program allowing one-way awards. I am not sure if this free one-way stopover is a system glitch from the ANA Mileage Club or not, but I will further explore this with different routes and update this post.