Etihad Airways is offering a significant discount on award tickets at the moment, which could represent a great deal.
In this post:
Save 30% on Etihad Airways awards
The Etihad Guest frequent flyer program is offering a 30% discount on award tickets:
- You must book by August 27, 2020
- You must travel by May 31, 2021
- This is available exclusively for bookings through the Etihad Guest program, for Etihad Airways operated flights
- Both one-way and roundtrip travel is eligible for this promotion
- This only applies to Etihad’s saver level award availability (“GuestSeats”) and not the more expensive awards (“OpenSeats”)
- This is valid for travel in economy, business class, and first class
Save 30% on the cost of Etihad award tickets
You can find Etihad Airways’ award calculator here, which will show you how many miles you could ordinarily expect to pay, and then you can expect to pay 30% fewer miles through this sale.
If a flight is eligible, the discount will automatically be reflected when doing an award search.
For example, a one-way business class ticket from Abu Dhabi to Paris would cost just 43,860 miles with the 30% discount.
Meanwhile a one-way first class ticket from Abu Dhabi to New York would cost just 95,584 miles with the 30% discount.
In the event that you need to redeposit an award, Etihad Guest charges a fee of 10% of the miles redeemed to have your miles put back into your account.
How to earn Etihad Guest miles
There are lots of ways to earn Etihad Guest miles, even if you don’t fly Etihad often:
- Etihad often sells miles at a discount
- Etihad Guest is transfer partners with Amex Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou, and Capital One, so there are lots of ways to transfer points to Etihad Guest
If you’re going to transfer miles to Etihad Guest from a partner program, note that miles expire after 24 months of inactivity. This is a great improvement over the old policy, as miles used to expire even with activity.
There are lots of ways to earn Etihad Guest miles
Is this promotion a good deal?
30% off award tickets with few restrictions is a great promotion, assuming you have Etihad Guest miles and are ready to plan travel between now and next spring.
However, for those with transferrable points, the added wrinkle is that there are several ways to redeem for travel on Etihad. You can also redeem Air Canada Aeroplan and American AAdvantage miles for travel on Etihad, and in many cases the redemption values are better.
Just to do a comparison of redemption rates between the three programs under usual circumstances, here are one-way redemption rates between Abu Dhabi and New York:
- Air Canada Aeroplan charges 82,500 miles in business class and 115,000 miles in first class
- American AAdvantage charges 70,000 miles in business class and 115,000 miles in first class
- Etihad Guest charges 99,885 miles in business class and 136,090 miles in first class, plus surcharges (pre-promotion)
That’s just one example, but as you can see, rates are all over the place. In some markets you’ll come out way ahead with one program over another, and in others you won’t. Before transferring any miles to Etihad Guest to take advantage of this, make sure you do a comparison.
Make sure you compare redemption rates between all three programs
Bottom line
Etihad Guest is offering 30% off award tickets for travel through May 31, 2021. This is an awesome promotion, especially given how few restrictions there are.
However, for many people you’re still going to be better off booking through AAdvantage or Aeroplan, depending on the city pair.
Do you plan on taking advantage of this Etihad Guest award sale?
If I wanted to fly jfk to auh then auh to syd with a ~5 hr layover are those 2 separate awards or can you combine and use less miles?
@Lucky I'm a bit confused. Specifically looking at your Abu Dhabi -New York redemption in F. I understand that with the discount it will cost significantly less miles than if you go through someone like aeroplan, but then after Etihad Guest you add in the language "plus surcharges". Aeroplan doesn't pass on the surcharges with this airline? I know some airlines have surcharges soo massive that it make doing the reward not really worthwhile in...
@Lucky I'm a bit confused. Specifically looking at your Abu Dhabi -New York redemption in F. I understand that with the discount it will cost significantly less miles than if you go through someone like aeroplan, but then after Etihad Guest you add in the language "plus surcharges". Aeroplan doesn't pass on the surcharges with this airline? I know some airlines have surcharges soo massive that it make doing the reward not really worthwhile in some cases. Would Etihad Guest be the way you go on this Abu Dhabi-New York flight factoring in the discount or do those surcharges change the calculation?
@Ben I see that you didn’t mention Asiana. How does booking with them compare with Aeroplan and American and aren’t they a better option?
Also could you add an Abu Dhabi to Europe example for your legions of readers from across the pond?
By the way, when are you going to post more videos on YouTube. You have one of those faces where you look like you’re always smiling. :-)
Is this even of any benefit for first class awards ? I don’t see Availabilty for most of the routes where etihad offered First class previously.
"Etihad Guest charges 99,885 miles in business class and 136,090 miles in first class, plus surcharges"
It's not really clear if this is before or after the promotion.
@ Evan -- That's before the promotion. Sorry, I'll update the post to clarify that.
Does this promotion extend to partner awards? I am looking at going to Morocco on Royal Air Maroc!
@ Glenn -- Nope, it's only for travel on Etihad.