Cathay Pacific used to offer the best award value for business class from the US East Coast to Europe. You could redeem 60,000 AsiaMiles for business class on partner British Airways using their distance-based award chart. Then in October they bumped the mileage requirement to 80,000. Still a definite value compared to BA’s own chart (which requires 100,000 miles to London and 120,000 for several cities beyond). But not the mind-blower it once was. Many a time I had folks transfer 50,000 Starwood points to Cathay Pacific to get the needed 60,000 AsiaMiles and redeem for BA business class. The especially nice thing about that deal is that I’ve found availability on British Airways from the US East Coast to be excellent.

One Mile at a Time points out another great redemption value across the Atlantic

With ANA’s new award chart, a 5,000-7,000 mile flight on a partner airline in Business Class is only 63,000 miles. JFK-LHR is just under 3,500 miles each way, and since Virgin Atlantic is a partner with ANA, that’s a great way to redeem miles, in my opinion. For only 5,000 miles more (68,000 miles roundtrip), you can take them from anywhere else on the East Coast or connect onward in Europe, anywhere less than 9,000 miles roundtrip.

Of course, in addition to Virgin Atlantic you can use the award to fly on Star Alliance partners United, USAirways, Lufthansa, british midland, Austrian, Swiss (not bookable via the ANA website), SAS, Singapore, Air Canada…

And you can transfer to ANA from – off the top of my head – American Express Membership Rewards, Priority Club, Hyatt, and Starwood. For those transferring from Starwood, that’s just 58,000 Starpoints to get 68,000 ANA Mileage Club miles.