Award Chart Deal for Business Class to Europe

by Gary Leff

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.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  2. This sounds interesting, but Virgin does not have an actual business class. They have premium economy and upper class. Which does this deal get you?

  3. Of course Virgin has business class. They call it Upper Class. Continental calls their business class BusinessFirst, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t business class. The name is marketing, but that doesn’t change the product.

    Now, Virgin’s business class is quite nice (food notwithstanding), at least as far as the relevant competition goes. So don’t get me wrong.

    But they do have a business class.

    And that’s what the award I’m talking about books into.

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