Update: As of November 15, 2020 Etihad Guest and Air Seychelles are no longer partners, and you cannot redeem Etihad Guest miles for travel on Air Seychelles. Etihad also sold their stake in Air Seychelles this spring for the whopping price of $1.
Earlier I shared how I’m going to the Seychelles and redeemed miles for a one-way business class ticket on Air Seychelles. In this post I wanted to outline what that process was like, for anyone looking to redeem miles on Air Seychelles.
Where does Air Seychelles fly?
Air Seychelles is a fairly small airline, with just 10 planes — they have two A330s, two A320s, and six DHC-6 Twin Otters. In other words, they only have four planes operating international routes.
Air Seychelles’ international destinations include:
- Abu Dhabi, UAE
- Antananarivo, Madagascar
- Johannesburg, South Africa
- Mumbai, India
- Paris, France
- Port Louis, Mauritius
The only destination to which they consistently fly A330s is Paris, though they also occasionally fly them to Johannesburg, Mumbai, Port Louis, etc.
Air Seychelles A330 (photo courtesy Pvalmont)
What program lets you redeem miles for Air Seychelles?
Air Seychelles is an Etihad Airways Partner, and they use the Etihad Guest program as their loyalty program. This means that you can redeem Etihad Guest miles for travel on Air Seychelles.
How many miles do Air Seychelles awards cost?
Etihad Guest’s award chart for Air Seychelles has different pricing for each destination, as follows:
The above pricing is roundtrip, though you’re able to book one-way awards for half the cost of a roundtrip. In other words, a one-way business class redemption to Abu Dhabi would cost 25,916 miles, a one-way business class redemption to Paris would cost 62,836 miles, etc.
I’d say these award prices are competitive, though not exceptionally good.
How good is Air Seychelles award availability?
Award availability on Air Seychelles, especially in business class, is excellent. Almost all flights seem to have at least two business class award seats, regardless of whether you’re booking close to departure or far in advance. Some even have more award seats than that, even way in advance.
Keep in mind Air Seychelles has pretty intimate premium cabins. The A330 has just 18 business class seats, so it’s impressive that they have this much award space.
The best place to search award availability is through ExpertFlyer, which is a subscription service. Otherwise the best way to inquire about space is to phone up Etihad Guest.
How do you book Air Seychelles award availability?
Best I can tell, Air Seychelles doesn’t let you search award availability directly through their website, and Etihad Guest doesn’t display partner award availability on their website. So to redeem Etihad Guest miles for travel on Air Seychelles you’ll have to phone up Etihad Guest (they’re available 24/7 at 877-690-0767). The good news is that the agents are generally quite competent, and of the few calls I made to inquire about award availability, every agent found space that matched what ExpertFlyer saw.
When I actually made the booking, the entire call took about 20 minutes, which I thought was pretty good. So while it’s annoying to have to call, at least it’s a fairly straightforward process.
How high are the fees when redeeming on Air Seychelles?
Etihad Guest will pass on everything except the base fare when redeeming on Air Seychelles. The easiest way to figure out how much you’d pay in fees is to do a “dummy booking” on ITA Matrix (just pretend you’re making a cash booking on the flight you’re looking at). When you get to the final page look at all the taxes and fees, and you can expect to pay everything except the base fare. One interesting thing I’ve noticed is that the carrier imposed surcharges (often referred to as fuel surcharges) are higher on flights to the Seychelles than on flights from the Seychelles.
For example, from the Seychelles to Paris you’d pay a total of $49.50 in taxes and fees for a business class award.
Meanwhile from Paris to the Seychelles you’d pay a total of $315.14 in taxes, $202.90 of which is a carrier imposed surcharge.
This matches what I was quoted when calling Etihad, and it seems like the pattern of fees being higher for travel originating outside of the Seychelles is pretty consistent. So if you’re just going to redeem miles for travel on Air Seychelles in one direction, ideally redeem for flights from the Seychelles, rather than the other way around.
How can you earn Etihad Guest miles?
Etihad Guest is transfer partners with Amex Membership Rewards and Citi ThankYou, so there are lots of ways to transfer over points that can be used for these kinds of redemptions.
- 4x points at restaurants, on up to $50,000 in purchases annually
- 4x points at U.S. supermarkets, on up to $25,000 in purchases annually
- 3x points on flights booked directly with airlines or through amextravel.com
- $325
- Access to Amex Offers
- Redeem Amex Points Towards Airfare
- $375
- Earn 5x points on flights purchased directly from airlines or through Amex Travel (up to $500k/year)
- $200 Annual Uber Credit
- Amex Centurion Lounge Access
- $695
- Earn 1.5x on purchases of $5,000 or more in a single transaction on up to $2MM per calendar year
- Redeem Points For Over 1.5 Cents Each Towards Airfare
- Amex Centurion Lounge Access
- $695
- 2x points on purchases up to $50k then 1x
- Access to Amex Offers
- No annual fee
Is Air Seychelles’ business class any good?
I’ll be able to give a better answer once I fly them in a few months, though it looks like they have a decent enough business class product. Air Seychelles’ A330s feature fully flat seats in business class, though they’re in a 2-2-2 configuration, so there’s not direct aisle access from every seat. On the plus side, the cabin has only 18 seats, so it’s pretty private. Air Seychelles’ A330s also have Wi-Fi.
Overall there just isn’t that much competition in their markets, so in many cases this will be the best option for getting to the Seychelles.
Air Seychelles A330 business class
Bottom line
Redeeming Etihad Guest miles on Air Seychelles is a solid value, and it’s great how wide open award availability is. It’s also quite easy to acquire Etihad Guest miles due to how many partners they have, though you do have to book by phone, which is a bit of a pain. Other than that, I consider redeeming Etihad Guest miles on Air Seychelles to be a great opportunity, and I can’t wait to see what their onboard product is like.
Unfortunately, Etihad is no longer a partner of Air Seychelles, and therefore booking is impossible.
How to redeem miles to fly SEZ-PRI? It's an expense ticket!
Flew Air Seychelles E a couple months ago BOM-SEZ then SEZ-MRU (was supposed to be SEZ-TNR until they cancelled it and never notified me)
Frankly I enjoyed the product. Not that it was super special, but certainly the atmosphere was nicer than you'll find on U.S domestic airlines. At least until they spray insecticide towards the end (Seychelles requirement)
We flew the Air Seychelles Business Class on the SEZ-CDG leg of our RTW trip in April, using Etihad points (transferred from MR.) . The scheduling is great because it is an overnight non-stop that gets into Paris early in the morning, and the flight leaves late enough that we were able to spend a full day on La Digue and then catch the last ferry to Mahe to taxi to the airport in plenty...
We flew the Air Seychelles Business Class on the SEZ-CDG leg of our RTW trip in April, using Etihad points (transferred from MR.) . The scheduling is great because it is an overnight non-stop that gets into Paris early in the morning, and the flight leaves late enough that we were able to spend a full day on La Digue and then catch the last ferry to Mahe to taxi to the airport in plenty of time to shower in the lounge.
The service was very friendly, if a little amatuerish. The food was unmemorable (I actually don't remember it except that they had pancakes for breakfast.) . The seats were very old style lie flat, and my window seat didn't go all the way flat, so I switched with my wife who didn't mind having a slight angle. You can also check availability in Expertflyer. They seem to release two J award seats on each flight a year ahead.
@Lucky I once flew Air Seychelles from HKG to AUH. It was an EY coded flight and the soft product from blankets to meals to china and silverware to amenity kit were Etihad branded. All flight attendants were in Etihad uniform. It was flown on an older A330 and the hard product was a bit outdated, even more so compared to older Etihad planes. While it wasn’t terrible by any means, there is nothing to...
@Lucky I once flew Air Seychelles from HKG to AUH. It was an EY coded flight and the soft product from blankets to meals to china and silverware to amenity kit were Etihad branded. All flight attendants were in Etihad uniform. It was flown on an older A330 and the hard product was a bit outdated, even more so compared to older Etihad planes. While it wasn’t terrible by any means, there is nothing to get excited about. Word of caution, especially to Ben, none of the power outlets worked on any seat. Not sure if it was one off or whether this is a common occurrence. A friendly flight attendant saw me fiddling with the outlet and offered to charge my phone up front, which I desperately took her up on. I saw one or 2 others who asked to do the same.
Lucky, introduction paragraph, you missed the e off outline
This product reminds me of the US Airways Envoy 767-200 seat before these were retired 3 or 4 years ago- urgh!
Have similar flights & trip planned for September 2018, so excited to hear your experience!
Question for you (or anyone else who has done this) -- Did you look into paying for coach and upgrading with miles? Curious if that would avoid the higher fees for flying to the Seychelles? Do you know if availability for an upgrade is the same as outright awards? I'm looking at expert flyer and there's availability for a business award on the days we want
Thanks!
You can also earn EY-miles by flying The Residence ;) ;) ;)
I used EY miles for Air Seychelles this summer from SEZ-JNB. I want to say fees were around ~$250 per person. The biz seats are similar to the ones on SAA and food/service was decent. I doubt you’ll be blown away but I’d say it’s a decent choice considering there aren’t many great options for Seychelles in general