Folks, I obviously just have really bad karma on this review trip, and that’s fine. First there was the Lufthansa downgrade, and now there’s an Etihad suspension, meaning I needed to rework my trip. With the direction things are headed, I’m a little worried about my return flight on American… hopefully I don’t get Dr. Dao’ed!
I’ve been suspended from Etihad Guest, apparently?
So, I was going to have a little Etihad adventure this weekend. I had booked an Etihad business class flight from Munich (MUC) to Abu Dhabi (AUH) with American AAdvantage miles, and then my plan was to fly from Abu Dhabi to Paris (CDG) in Etihad’s A380 The Residence, which is the carrier’s three-room suite.
Nowadays, The Residence is available as a paid upgrade for first class passengers who ticket directly through Etihad. So that meant that I needed to redeem Etihad Guest miles for this flight. I held off on booking this flight until around a day before departure, because the flight was wide open, and I dislike Etihad Guest’s punitive cancelation policy, whereby you forfeit your entire ticket if you need to cancel last minute.
I just don’t like that level of inflexibility, so I waited to book until last minute. So I transferred 126,000 Amex Membership Rewards points to Etihad Guest, and selected the upgrade to The Residence, and then went to ticket the reservation. That should’ve been straightforward… right?
However, as I tried to ticket, I got a message saying I had insufficient miles.
Hmmm, I thought that was strange. So I logged out of my account, and back in. I had the same error message. I then tried using a different browser. Same error message.
I then decided to transfer an extra 1,000 points, since some loyalty programs have a weird quirk where they don’t think you have sufficient miles if you have exactly the number of miles required (I’ve noticed this with Emirates Skywards in the past).
Nope, the same error message persisted. So I used the online chat feature (which was painful, quite frankly), and the agent encouraged me to try a different browser, but had no other solutions.
At this point I picked up the phone and figured I’d try making the reservation by phone, since obviously I wasn’t having any luck online. After verifying all my account information, the agent informed me what the problem was — my Etihad Guest account was suspended!
He told me I’d need to email a particular department with a copy of my passport, and I’d hear back in around 72 hours. I explained that I intended to travel within 36 hours, and he said there was nothing that could be done. He also couldn’t explain why my account was suspended, but told me that I’d be informed by said department.
This Etihad situation is a mystery to me
I have no clue why my Etihad Guest account would have been suspended. I don’t think I’ve booked an award through the account in years. The best theory I can come up with is that this is one of those fraud prevention measures, where airlines find it suspicious when members transfer points to a program and then *gasp* redeem said points for a flight shortly thereafter.
Airlines deal with a lot of loyalty program fraud, and it’s not unusual to see airlines sometimes temporarily suspend accounts in order to verify details. I’ve written about this many times, so this is nothing new. Of course I understand that protecting accounts is important, but:
- There should be a near instant process for being able to do this, rather than it taking days
- It would be nice it there were actually error messages on the website telling you what’s wrong, rather than erroneous messages that just make you think there’s some tech glitch
- It would be nice if some logic were applied in these situations; like, if I’m the account holder and I’m redeeming points for myself, then it seems pretty safe to assume my account isn’t being compromised
- If there was some other reason my account was suspended (that’s beyond my knowledge), it would be nice if they’d block points transfers, so that you don’t transfer points you may no longer be able to use
I know it’s an oversimplification, but it certainly leaves a bad taste in your mouth when an airline is like “that’ll cost 126,000 points,” then you transfer 126,000 points as they ask for, and then they’re like “yeah, actually, no, that’s suspicious, we’re not going to let you book that.”
I can’t count the number of stories I’ve received from readers over the years about similar issues with various programs, and now I’ve finally dealt with it myself as well…
So, what’s my review trip plan instead?
I’ve decided to just ditch the entire side trip to the Middle East. Why? Well, on the outbound, I was supposed to fly Etihad’s new Boeing 787-9 business class, but that ended up getting swapped to a 787-10, featuring a less interesting product, which I’ve reviewed before.
So I just take this all as a sign that this portion of the trip wasn’t meant to be. Instead, I’m spending an extra day in Munich with my dad, and I tend to think quality time with family is never wasted, so I’m happy with that decision.
I’ll then slowly make my way back to the United States in American’s new business class (unless they pull a Hertz on me, or something, given how this trip is going), but not before stopping at the Park Hyatt London River Thames for a night, to check that out.
I intend to travel through Abu Dhabi soon anyway, so that I can fly the carrier’s new Airbus A321LR first class, so I can check out everything at once.
Bottom line
This review trip hasn’t exactly been seamless so far, between a Lufthansa downgrade and an Etihad suspension. After transferring points to Etihad Guest, I discovered that my account had been suspended, with no way to resolve it quickly.
So I apologize that my trip will be a bit different than planned, but I intend to pass through Abu Dhabi again soon, checking out two products at once…
Have any OMAAT readers dealt with an Etihad Guest (or other loyalty program) account suspension in this way?
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