Today an email landed in my inbox advertising a “summer enrollment campaign” for the ANA Card U.S.A, a credit card that earns miles with ANA Mileage Club. Interested to see what kind of sign-up offer this “campaign” carried, I clicked through the email.
The ANA Card U.S.A is issued by First Bankcard of First National Bank of Omaha. This is the same bank that issues the Best Western Visa cards. I have little experience with them since I’ve never really been interested in their products. I did have my wife apply for the Best Western card during a round of apps several months back, but it was denied, and I never could get her to call the reconsideration line.
Trying to find the offer
After clicking through the email, I landed on a page that shows the card, advertises the campaign, and displays the enrollment window of July through September. There were some important notices about this being a product for U.S. residents and showing the campaign code. Still nothing describing a sign-up bonus. Interesting.
Figuring it would show up on the application itself, I clicked apply. This eventually led me to a page where they wanted me to enter my ANA Mileage Club number. I stopped at this point since I really wasn’t interested in the card. Instead, I clicked on the “Summary of Credit Terms” hyperlink. This took me to a fairly typical credit card terms page describing the APR, minimum interest charge, annual fee, blabbity blabbity blah, eventually ending with some ANA program terms and conditions.
That’s it. Reading the fine print, the ANA Card simply earns 1 mile per dollar spent spent. There are no bonus categories, and there is no bonus offer. The best they can do is offer you the card for free for the first year before kicking in a $70 fee for quite literally nothing. This has to be the saddest co-branded card product you could ever waste a hard pull on. I think I’d rather pick up a Citi Costco Visa for a free rotisserie chicken.
Wait…I found something
Doing a little Google searching, I eventually found a page with some more info on the ANA Card USA. The benefits include 5,000 ANA miles after your first purchase, 25% bonus miles on flights, 10% off in-flight purchases with ANA and 10% off ANA duty-free shopping. While better than what I thought was a nothing offer, it is still quite the sad offer.
Now…what isn’t apparent to me is if the card offered through the “summer campaign” actually gives you the 5,000 miles after first purchase and all the other benefits. If ANA Card is trying to run a campaign on a card with *no* sign-up bonus when there is an offer out there for the same card *with* a sign-up bonus, I’d be appalled. That’s about the sleaziest thing you could possibly do as an issuer.
The card is also advertised as “an opportunity to build credit history in America” and appears to be geared toward Japanese citizens who have relocated to the U.S. I hope they figure out quickly that there are much better products over here!
The card is still pointless
Since you can obtain ANA miles by earning Membership Rewards points and then transferring them as needed, it makes zero sense to get this card. Literally all MR-earning cards are better than this one. The card doesn’t even offer any minor yet decent perks like lounge passes or discounts off of ANA airfare. I’m trying to figure out what consumer would even be interested, and if First Bankcard has managed to even dupe even one person into applying for their product.
The ANA Card U.S.A. is, quite literally, the worst mile-earning credit card I’ve ever heard of. I’d probably open a Spirit card before I’d consider it.
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Japanese Airlines are great, both Jal and Ana but when it comes to CC, it is the opposite for both. check the Jal card, it is just as bad
I’ve gotten a few of these offers since I created my ANA account, and they really are astonishingly bad 😀 There should almost be an award for something this awful — the credit card equivalent of a booby prize.