Hi, I am butter-knife living in Tokyo and write about real Tokyo life.
If you live in Japan or you are going to live in Japan and would like to earn JAL or ANA mileage for flights to see your family and friends back in your country, please check this article.
I am saving Mileage for family travel, and there are some tips to save mileage in Japanese life, so I would like to share it with you.
There are 2 major way and 1 other way to save mileage, firstly you can save flights mile, secondly you can earn mileage with credit card payments, and, thirdly you can earn mileage using websites called POINT SITE.
I would love to share the third way(POINT SITE) because it's so important.
1. Flight Mile
This is very simple, you can collect mileage with your flights.
If you are one of those lucky people who has enough business trips to collect flights' mileage, you don't need to read this article anymore.
But if you travel with airplanes just once or twice in a year and feeling you cannot get enough mileage, then you need other ways to save mileage.
2. with Credit Card Payments
This is another common way to earn mileage.
There are some points to select which card you use, you would like to check the annual fee and return rate.
If you would like to earn ANA mileage, then there are 2 choices.
There are so many ANA cards other than below 2 kind, but many MASTERS has studyed a lot about each card and concluded these 2 are the best choice, so you don't need to waste your time for studying other cards.
A. ANA VISA Suica / ANA VISA nimoca / ANA TOKYU POINT ClubQ PASMO
Fee: ￥2000 * tax (￥2,160) -> after 2 procedure -> ￥751 * tax (￥811)
Rate: Default 0.5% -> after 2 procedure -> 1.3%-1.52%
B. ANA VISA/Master WIDE GOLD CARD
Fee: 14,000yen * tax (￥15,120) -> after 2 steps -> ￥9,500 * tax (￥10,260)
Rate: Default 1.0% -> after 2 steps -> 1.3%-1.648%
*2 steps
To maximize the rate and to discout annucal fee, you need to apply for WEB明細(WEB-meisai) and マイ・ペイすリボ(my-pace-revolving).
WEB明細(WEB-meisai) means you don't receive credit card statement in paper document, you would check it just online(V-Pass).
マイ・ペイすリボ(my-pace-revolving) means that all your payments are going to be Revolving Credit. If you don't like to use Revolving Credit because of intererest charge (I also hate revolving or any installment plan and never use it except for this card), please do not worry, there is a way to avoid interests.
You can change the amount of each months' payment through web site(V-Pass), so you only need to change the amount every month as if it's lump-sum-payment. If the setting amount is ￥50,000 and you use ￥75,000 this month, then you change the payment setting from ￥50,000 to ￥74,000. You need to generate a bit of interest to take the double-mileage benefit, so you cannot change it to ￥75,000. This is going to be a monthly task, but it's easy enough and worth it!!
I myself use ANA VISA Suica card as my main card!
*Difference btw 1. ANA VISA Suica / ANA VISA nimoca / ANA TOKYU POINT ClubQ PASMO and 2. ANA VISA/Master WIDE GOLD CARD
a. 5 mile course and 10 mile course
Whichever you choose, you will receive World Present Point(WPP) first (not ANA mileage). You will need to send the World Present Point to ANA Mileage.
You will receive 1 WPP for each ￥1,000 payment.
1 WPP becomes 10 ANA mileage when you are in 10 mile course.
1 WPP becomes 5 ANA mileage when you are in 5 mile course.
With A, you are in 5 mile course and will be charged ￥6000*tax(￥6,480) for 10 mile course registration.
With B, you are already in 10 mile course.
b. Bonus WPP depends on amount of last year
You will be classified in V1,V2 and V3 classes depends on how much you spend last year. In the upper class you will receive more nonus WPP.
V1 ￥500,000-￥1,000,000
V2 ￥1,000,000-￥3,000,000
V3 ￥3000000-
With A,
V1: at ￥500,000 50WPP. After that 10WPP for each ￥100,000.
V2: at ￥500,000 75WPP. After that 15WPP for each ￥100,000.
V3: at ￥500,000 150WPP. After that 30WPP for each ￥100,000.
With B,
V1: at ￥500,000 100WPP. After that 20WPP for each ￥100,000.
V2: at ￥500,000 150WPP. After that 30WPP for each ￥100,000.
V3: at ￥500,000 300WPP. After that 60WPP for each ￥100,000.
-> This is the cause of Refund Rate difference.
c. Annual Mileage Present
With A, you will receive 1000 mileage every year.
With B, you will receive 2000 mileage every year.
d. Flight Bonus Mileage Rate
With A, you will receive 10% bonus.
With B, you will receive 25% bonus.
Conclusion
A. ANA VISA Suica / ANA VISA nimoca / ANA TOKYU POINT ClubQ PASMO
Fee: ￥751*tax (￥811)
Rate: 1.3%-1.52% (depends on class(V1,V2,V3))
Additional Fee: ￥6000*tax(￥6,480) (when you send WPP to ANA mile/once in 2 years)
Annual Mileage: 1000 mile
Flight Bonus Mileage: 10%
B. ANA VISA/Master WIDE GOLD CARD
Fee: ￥9,500*tax (￥10,260)
Rate: 1.3%-1.648% (depends on class(V1,V2,V3))
Additional Fee: none
Annual Mileage: 2000 mile
Flight Bonus Mileage: 25%
If you would like to earn JAL mileage, then I reccomend you JAL card TOYKU POINT ClubQ Visa/Master card.
If you live near AEON(イオン)(super market), My Basket(まいばすけっと)(grocery store), or Family mart(convenience store) then you will definitely need JAL card.
JAL card TOYKU POINT ClubQ Visa/Master card
Fee：￥2,160
Rate: 0.5% -> 1.0%(Shopping Mile Premium)
Additional Fee: ￥3,240(Shopping Mile Premium)
Annual First Flight Mileage: 1000 mile
Flight Bonus Mileage: 10%
Comparing with ANA card, the return rate is low. But if you shop in AEON, My Basket or Family mart, they are JAL card special store and the return rate will be 2.0%!!
AEON and My Basket are supermarket store, so you will spend amount of money, and the return rate there is very important.
I myself live near AEON and do always do grocery shopping there, so always use JAL card and earn JAL mileage!
There are so many JAL cards and the reason I recommend TOYKU POINT ClubQ Visa/Master card is because you can charge WAON with the card as earning mileage.
There are some electronic money in Japan, probably the most famous e-money is SUICA or PASMO I suppose, those are from railway companies. And the second famous e-money is WAON...? You can use WAON in McDonald's, Yoshinoya, Domino's and Family mart/LAWSON/ MINI STOP(Convenience store), HAC drug/薬の福太郎(Pharmacy store), Sports Authority, Big Camera so on so on...
Usually point returning of credit card is not applied for e-money charging. You can charge WAON and still earn JAL mileage if with TOYKU POINT ClubQ Visa/Master card! WAON is great e-money if you live near AEON because you will earn 5 times of JAL mileage on 10th of every month. You cannot get 5 times of mileage with JAL card, you need WAON for this hence you are going to need JAL card with witch you can charge WAON earning mileage.
JAL CARD SUMMARY
Shopping: 1.0%
Shopping in JAL special store: 2.0%
Shopping in AEON and My Basket on 10th every month with WAON(e-maney):
WAON charge: 1.0%
WAON payment: 2.5%
For instance, ￥10,000 of WAON shopping;
WAON charge: 100 JAL Mileage
WAON payment: 250 JAL Mileage
-> Total 350 Mileage (Return rate = 3.5%)
3. POINT SITE
For those who doesn't business trip alot or shop that much with credit card, please do not give up there, there is 3rd way to earn Mileage and this is quite effective!
POINT SITE method is more effective in ANA mileage, so I am going to talk about ANA mileage here.
There are some major POINT system in Japan, you might have heard T-Point, R-Point(Rakuten-Point), Recruit-Point, and D-Point etc. Those are very similar to Amazon-Point. You can earn point with shopping and use it like money for the next shopping. Those major points are changable to ANA/JAL mileage.
But the POINT SITE method that I am reffering here as 3rd way here is not that major kind. Still it's pretty safe and so many Japanese milers are using this method as "The Only Way".
This 3rd way is quite simple.
1st, Earn n Save point on POINT SITE!
2nd, Change point to mileage in PROPER ROUTE!
The routing is the most important!
There is one credit card required, called ANA To-Me-CARD(Sorachika-card). With ANA To-Me-CARD, you can collect Metro-Point and since To-Me-CARD is generated from both Tokyo Metro and ANA, you can bring 1 Metro-Point to 0.9 ANA mileage!!! This convertion rate is amazingly high and you are going to need this route!
So, basically what you have to do to earn mileage is to save point and bring them into Metro-Point!!
You cannot earn Metro-Point by credit payments of To-Me-Card (you are going to get OkiDoki-Point instead), so for daily payments you should use credit cards I reccomended in the above paragraph.
All major point such as T-Point can be bringed into ANA mileage, but the convertion rate is just 50% so 1000 T-Point becomes just 500 ANA mileage, on the other hand 1000 Metro-Point becomes 900 ANA mileage, you have to use this Metro-Point advantage!
Earning Metro-Point is very easy, you need LINE point first for Metro-Point. There are some POINT SITE which you are going to need to join such as Point Town but you cannot exchange Point Town Point to Metro-Point, so you need to first exchange it to LINE Point then bring it to Metro-point, then finally convert it to ANA Mileage!
This artcle is becoming too long so I will talk more of POINT SITE in other article, like which POINT SITE you should join and exactly how you can earn points on POINT SITE!!!
See you soon.
*I am learning English so if you find typo n gramatical mistakes, please kindly let me know.
