ANA is making changes to its award chart effective October 15. Historically ANA has given reasonable notice of award chart changes, so this surprises me to see.

This is especially relevant because ANA is a Star Alliance partner, and American Express Membership Rewards and Starwood points transfer to ANA’s miles.

What’s weird is that ANA only just introduced their current zone-based award chart April 12. So they’re devaluing after six months.

Here are the changes to the North America chart — award prices for ‘Asia 2’ and Latin and South America are getting more expensive.

Asia 2 is defined as:

Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, British Indian Ocean Territory, Brunei, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam

And South, Latin America is,

Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Aruba, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Bonaire/Saint Eustatius/Saba, Brazil, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Curacao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Falkland Islands, French Guiana, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Martinique, Montserrat, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Saint Helena, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Maarten, Suriname, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Torinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos Islands, Uruguay, US Virgin Islands, Venezuela

South America awards go up by 10% across the board. Asia 2 goes up 14% – 18%.

Given that the increases aren’t across all regions I’m guessing that ANA sees these as modest corrections, based on data they’ve seen under their new zone-based system. They looked at where they’re seeing the most redemptions and determined that the cost for those was too lower. In other words, the believe they made a mistake with their initial pricing so they’re tweaking it.

Nonetheless, the lack of notice to members is disconcerting.

(HT: MileValue)