ANA's SFC Rethink Turns LITE Back Into (Almost) the Old SFC

In April 2026, I wrote "The ANA SFC Devaluation Isn't What Twitter Thinks It Is". My point was that SFC's real value is priority boarding and the mileage bonus, and both survive under LITE. In June, ANA said it would review the changes. On 29 September, it announced the revised plan.

The short version: LITE is now much better than the April plan. But ANA lost something over these five months. I think it lost the trust of its members.

What Changed

Here is the April plan next to the September revision.

Item	April Plan	September Revision
LITE: domestic lounges	No access	Access, except at peak times
LITE: international lounges	No access	Access to ANA lounges at Haneda, Narita and Honolulu
Advance booking	None	Planned for LITE (PLUS members do not need to book)
Spending threshold	¥3 million a year	¥3 million a year (unchanged)
LITE Star Alliance status	Silver	Silver (unchanged)
Judging period	16 December 2026 to 15 December 2027	Same
Start date	April 2028	1 April 2028

LITE members may be turned away from domestic lounges over the New Year, Golden Week, and at times when many flights depart together. ANA will share details of the advance booking system during FY2027 (TRAICY). The shared lounges at Nagoya (Chubu), Osaka (Kansai), Kumamoto and Miyazaki stay open to LITE members, as does the ANA ARRIVAL LOUNGE at Narita. Priority check-in, dedicated security lanes, priority boarding and priority baggage also stay.

ANA also apologised at the press briefing. In short, it said it had focused so much on easing lounge congestion that it did not give enough thought to its long-time members (Aviation Wire).

The ¥3 million threshold did not change. ANA says it considered lowering it to ¥2 million. But a lower threshold means more PLUS members, and the lounges fill up again. That would leave LITE members with even fewer hours when they can get in. According to ANA, that is why it kept ¥3 million (J-CAST News).

In other words, as long as you fly ANA, LITE is now "SFC, but you might not get into the lounge at peak times". That is a very different thing from the April plan's full lounge ban.

A Correction to My April Post

Before I judge the revision, I need to correct something.

In April I wrote that "the only thing you actually lose under LITE is the lounge." That is only true when you fly ANA. It was not accurate. When you drop from Star Alliance Gold to Silver, you lose priority check-in, priority boarding and lounge access on partner airlines. If you connect on United, Lufthansa or Singapore Airlines, I think that is not a small loss.

The revision did not change this. ANA itself said it felt 心苦しい (roughly, "it weighs on us") about cutting priority services on partner airlines (J-CAST News).

So the revision helps some people more than others. If you mostly fly ANA, you are almost back to where you were. If you fly partner airlines abroad, almost nothing has changed since April.

How People Reacted

After the announcement, I read through my timeline on X (formerly Twitter). There was less anger than in April. What stood out was a cold reaction to how ANA explained itself. The reactions fall into four groups.

1. "ANA Created These Members Itself"

This was the most common one. At the briefing, ANA said SFC membership is now about 1.5 times what it was before COVID. It expects membership to grow to about 1.4 times today's level by 2035 (TRAICY).

People replied with lines like "Who ran the double Premium Points campaign during COVID and pushed everyone into 修行?" and "You grew the membership yourselves, and now it is a problem?" (修行, literally "ascetic training", is the Japanese nickname for flying purely to earn status.)

They have a point. When passengers disappeared during COVID, ANA doubled Premium Points, grew its elite membership, and used that to keep short-term revenue coming in. Five years later, it says there are too many members. That does not add up. Members who held SFC before COVID have every reason to feel they are paying for someone else's decision.

2. "Since When Is ANA a Credit Card Company?"

Many people said an airline status should be based on how often or how far you fly, not on how much you spend on a card. Others pointed out that business travellers pay for flights with a corporate card, so that spending never shows up on their ANA card.

I understand the feeling. But ANA's logic holds up here. SFC was always a card product: pay the annual fee, keep the status. If you want status based on flights flown each year, that already exists. It is the regular Premium Member programme. Measuring a card product by card spending is a natural step.

The problem was not the threshold. It was how ANA presented the numbers. At the briefing, ANA revealed that about 40% of SFC members spend under ¥1 million a year on the card, and about 30% spend under ¥500,000. The reaction was predictable: "If 30% spend under ¥500,000, why jump straight to ¥3 million?" The gap from where members are today is too big. To members, it sounds like ANA is saying "you don't spend enough".

3. "ANA Should Have Done What JAL Did"

I covered this in April too. When JAL changed JGC (now the Life Status Program) in 2024, it left existing members alone and made the rules stricter only for new members. Many people said ANA should have done the same.

On fairness between generations, ANA's approach of applying the same rules to everyone still makes more sense to me. I have not changed my mind on that.

But many existing members did their 修行 believing that once you had SFC, you kept it for life. That is how SFC was sold. If you change a promise halfway through, the side making the change owes people a careful explanation. The April announcement did not give one.

4. "I'm Cancelling My ANA Card"

"ANA card cancellations are piling up." "From now on, oneworld is my main alliance." Someone also said they would rather spend ¥3 million at Marriott.

Here I will repeat what I said in April. Cancelling SFC out of anger will cost you. Under the revised LITE, you keep domestic priority boarding, priority security and priority baggage. You also get lounge access outside peak times. Work out whether the annual fee is worth it based on how you actually fly. Do not let the mood on social media decide for you.

The Revision Is Right, but Maybe Too Late

I think the revision itself is the right call.

The lounge problem is not that there are too many members. It is that they all show up at the same time. Turn LITE members away at peak times, let them in the rest of the time, and use advance booking to know how many people are coming. That is far more practical than April's "everyone under ¥3 million is out". The reason for not lowering the threshold to ¥2 million is also clear: there are only so many seats in a lounge. The revised plan makes sense.

At the same time, ANA could have announced this plan in April. Congestion forecasting and advance booking are the first tools anyone would think of when running a lounge. Instead, ANA opened with the harshest option, a full lounge ban. It kept members worried for five months, took the criticism, and only then came back with a practical plan. The outcome landed in a sensible place. But the trust ANA lost along the way does not come back.

When people on social media called ANA a "company of liars" and said they had been "cheated", it was not about losing the lounge. It was because the promise that "once you have it, you keep it" was changed by one side only.

So What Do You Actually Do

My April options need a small update after this revision.

1. You mostly fly ANA, and often domestically. LITE is now enough. You might not get into the lounge at peak times, but over the New Year and Obon you can hardly find a seat in there today anyway. There is little reason to force ¥3 million of spending onto the card.
2. You often fly partner airlines abroad. Losing Star Alliance Gold hurts. You can move your household spending onto the ANA card and aim for PLUS. Or, if you only care about lounges, you can cover that with a card that includes Priority Pass. Work it out from how you actually fly.

Either way, the clock is running. The judging period starts on 16 December 2026, two and a half months from now. If you want PLUS, move your regular bills onto the ANA card before then.

The Mileage Game's Iron Rule, Revisited

I ended my April post by saying that mileage programmes live and die at the airline's discretion. That is still true.

But this time I learned something else. The airline makes the rules, but when enough members speak up, the rules move. April's full lounge ban became "access except at peak times" in five months.

My own view has not changed. SFC's value is in priority boarding and the mileage accrual bonus. Both survive under the revised LITE, and most of the lounge access has come back on top. As a heavy user, I am glad to see this revision.

I have one request for ANA. The next time you change the programme, start with a plan like this one. You can build more lounges. You cannot build more trust.