It’s so fun when airline loyalty programs offer gamified promotions, since it’s great for creating engagement. In 2024, we saw SAS EuroBonus offer its million points promotion, to celebrate the transition from Star Alliance to SkyTeam. Since then, we’ve seen several other programs offer similar promotions, including Ethiopian ShebaMiles, JetBlue TrueBlue, and Turkish Miles&Smiles.
Several weeks ago, we saw Etihad Guest launch an awesome promotion, which has the potential to be the most lucrative one yet. I want to provide an update, as Etihad has made this promotion even more rewarding, more than doubling the total number of miles up for grabs, and guaranteeing prizes for at least 100 people (compared to prizes for just three people, as was initially the case).
In this post:
Etihad Guest’s incredible five million mile promotion
Etihad is growing quite a bit at the moment, and to celebrate that, the airline is running a promotion encouraging members to fly to the carrier’s new destinations. The goal with this promotion is to be the first person to fly to the carrier’s 15 newest destinations.
The person who completes that first earns five million bonus miles, the person who completes that second earns three million bonus miles, and the person who completes that third earns one million bonus miles. The challenge is valid for travel between May 26, 2025, and May 25, 2026.
What’s new with this promotion is that there are opportunities for a lot more people to earn prizes. Specifically, the first 100 members to fly to five new destinations will earn 25,000 bonus miles, while the first 100 members to fly to 10 new destinations will earn 100,000 bonus miles.
These prizes are cumulative, so if you fly to 10 new destinations, you could earn 125,000 miles. Meanwhile if you win the first place spot, you could earn 5,125,000 miles. That means Etihad is awarding a total of up to 21.5 million bonus miles.
The top three winners will be notified by June 15, 2026, while the members passing certain milestones will be awarded those bonus miles after completing eligible flights. Those who are participating in the offer can access a leaderboard, showing rankings for everyone who has traveled to at least some of the new destinations. The required destinations include the following:
Algiers (Algeria), Atlanta (U.S.), Chiang Mai (Thailand), Hanoi (Vietnam), Hong Kong (Hong Kong), Krabi (Thailand), Medan (Indonesia), Peshawar (Pakistan), Phnom Penh (Cambodia), Taipei (Taiwan), Tunis (Tunisia), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Sochi (Russia), Prague (Czech Republic), Warsaw (Poland).
In the event that a route gets canceled, it will be exempt from the challenge, and the challenge will go ahead with the rest of the remaining routes.
One common question is how exactly Etihad is defining the first person to travel to all 15 new destination. The terms & conditions are quite ambiguous, and people seem to have different interpretations:
- Some people think the offer rewards the shortest cumulative travel time for visiting all 15 new destinations
- Some people think the offer rewards the person who takes each of the 15 new routes the fastest after they launch
- Some people think the offer rewards the person who is the first to visit the 15th new destination, regardless of cumulative travel time
My interpretation is that this offer is in line with that last point. In other words, what counts is that you travel to all 15 new destinations, and are the first person to wrap up that 15th flight.
Of course this is a bit tricky, since I imagine that everyone who wants to win the challenge will be taking the inaugural 15th flight. So, what’s the tiebreaker? “The tie breaker will be determined by who amongst them was the first to book the last qualifying flight to 15th destination.”
In other words, what matters is that you travel to all 15 destinations, and if you take the inaugural flight for the 15th destination, you’ll want to be the first person to book that. At least that’s my interpretation.
This is a fun promotion, but challenging…
It seems that SAS has inspired some other airlines, and I’m happy to see that, as these kinds of offers are always fun. Obviously five million bonus miles is a massive prize, even if Etihad Guest miles aren’t my favorite mileage currency. That being said, there are a couple of aspects of this challenge that will be complicated.
I think the first challenge is the specific destinations involved, including the visa requirements. For example, for people from many parts of the world, traveling to Russia right now probably isn’t that practical, or something that people are comfortable with.
I think the second challenge is that you could invest a lot of time and money into this, only to not actually earn anything. Fortunately the recent addition of milestones helps that a bit, since 100 people could each earn 125,000 miles for flying to 10 new destinations.
Still, this is a little different than the other offers we’ve seen with programs like SAS EuroBonus, where specific tasks unlocked specific rewards, regardless of what others were doing (I suspect this made the promotion pretty costly for SAS, in the end). With the Etihad promotion, you could spend $20,000 booking flights, only to end up winning 125,000 miles (or possibly not even that).
So I love the idea behind this, though I would’ve structured it a bit differently. Based on how I interpret this, the winner will come down to who travels to all 15 destinations, and booked the inaugural flight to the 15th destination the earliest. I think it would make more sense to reward the person who takes each of the 15 new routes the fastest after launch.
Bottom line
Etihad Guest is offering a fun promotion, with over 20 million miles worth of prizes. With the Abu Dhabi-based airline expanding, the idea is that those who fly to all 15 of the carrier’s new destinations can win prizes.
The first place prize is five million miles, the second place prize is three million miles, and the third place prize is one million miles. On top of that, the first 100 people to fly to five and 10 new destinations can earn 25,000 and 100,000 bonus miles, respectively.
This promotion has some unique challenges, including visa requirements, so I’m curious how many people try to “compete.”
What do you make of this Etihad Guest promotion?
So how long it took the first to reach 15 and won?
imagine losing out on millions of miles because your internet is bad, or because you need to sleep. Someone with insider knowledge of when tickets go on sale will win. What a sad promotion.
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EY changed the rules during the competition. Look at the language for the tiebreakers now, if you didn't have one of these flights booked already, you're likely already out of the running for the top 3.
Also, looks like TK is pulling down their contest for folks that haven't bought a ticket yet.
The idea that you could complete the requirements and still get nothing makes it a lot less interesting.
And past the first three prizes you’re maxed out at 125,000 points, which is one good credit card SUB.
Certainly very exciting, yes. But beyond visa requirements I see some serious complications for US traveler and I certainly hope I don’t hear of the State Department wasting diplomatic capital on rescuing some idiot mileage runner from Sochi.