Etihad has a fare that allows business or first class travel — roundtrip — originating in Colombo, Sri Lanka and traveling to Dallas Fort Worth and back for ~ US$1450 all-in.
The most natural routing that comes up most often and most easily is Colombo – Abu Dhabi – Chicago – Dallas. But the Abu Dhabi – Chicago flight (EY 150/151) doesn’t offer a first class cabin.
For first class you’d want to route via New York JFK, Washington Dulles, or Europe (e.g. Paris, Frankfurt). Europe routings would mean flying American’s first class transatlantic. If you can swing a London routing you’d get American’s new 777-300ER in first.
Here’s an Orbitz multi-day grid of available fares, searching business class:
And here’s a sample itinerary priced on the Etihad website:
One-way travel originating in Colombo is also available for ~ $1000. Here’s a sample that includes first class from Abu Dhabi to Europe and business class Europe to Dallas. This came up with a business class search.
The fare appears to be valid throughout the full booking calendar. I haven’t found destination cities other than Dallas where this is valid, though I haven’t yet spent substantial time looking. I suspect it is a mistake, probably intended to offer a new competitive fare out of Colombo (and Dallas in particular has been announced for new Etihad service) and then it was keyed in incorrectly.
I cannot say of course whether this will last or for how long, or even if it will be honored though I’d expect it would be as it isn’t that out of the ordinary price-wise considering the length of time that ~ $2000 first class fares existed between Colombo and most of the US, allowing travel even on the Emirates A380. I’d book it and then wait awhile before purchasing additional non-refundable items related to the trip to make sure it gets honored first (although with travel to the US, Department of Transportation rules on honoring airfare would apply and at a minimum it would seem that any non-refundable costs incurred would wind up having to be reimbursed if there’s some way for the airline to extricate itself from honoring).
Etihad is a partner of American AAdvantage, earning miles but not elite qualifying miles (only American codeshares on Etihad do). They’re also partners with a variety of other airlines in all 3 major alliances as well as the carriers that they have partial ownership stakes in.
(HT: Delta Points)
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This was requested not to post on a blog. Once again bloggers on this site never cease to amaze.
Are you serious? The OP on FT explicitly asked not to blog about it. Do you have no respect for those who share the deals? All you will do is motivate people to not post.
The best part is the hat tip to Delta Points. Might as well hat tip to the boogeyman or Bigfoot.
The fare was emailed to me. I’m sorry that someone on some site wrote about it and asked folks not to write about it further, a request that I did not see.
@Gary, glad you posted it. these whiners are as selfish as they are self righteous. these whiners should not visit your blog if all they can do is whine. hard to even say this is a mistake fare. and this fare is hardly helpful everyone.
@Gary–You may want to note that direct Etihad flights from AUH to the US or Toronto do not earn AA miles of any sort unless booked under an AA codeshare. See here: http://www.aa.com/i18n/AAdvantage/earnMiles/travel/airlines/etihad.jsp
@Mike, @Tyler – Right, because only people who read FT deserve to know about these deals, because those people are inherently privileged and have a much higher standing in society than everyone else.
FT is actually a very small discussion board to which only a handful of experts are granted access, and if deals were isolated to that board, then they would continue indefinitely.
You’re absolutely right.
Gary, please don’t play like you are oblivious- it’s the most recent MR deal on FT. I just lost a lot of respect for you.
I agree with you Tyler.
Even though someone e-mailed your the deal, are you telling us that you didn’t even read the first post of the thread? Personally, I call BS on that.
I enjoy reading your blog but that comment you just made is ridiculous.
@John, why not you just shut up and contribute something to the frequent flier community?
Some site that someone requested that you did not see, amazing how loyalty changes once MP got underway whereas FT was the original forum that got most of us, including you, to grasp the vast knowledge of this world.
I completely agree with Jim and Tyler.
It’s not as though the Flyer Talk mileage run thread is a big secret. (I’ve seen it referred to on many of the popular frequent flier blogs.) Anyone can go to the thread’s site, bookmark it and browse back to check for deals as often as they like.
Not only is this sort of reposting redundant, but because of View from the Wing’s popularity, other bloggers are encouraged to post the same information. In fact, if you read the Flyer Talk thread you’ll see that this has already happened, with the blogger in question citing View from the Wing as his justification.
Availability changed right before my eyes, one minute it was $1000 next minute it was $4,500. Is anyone else seeing it still available?
Kinda disappointed, but I believe you anyways, however maybe good idea to double check, before posting. It’s getting to the point of similar: “Don’t call airline” rule, what do you think?
Cool, I just booked, leaving CMB May 15 and returning to CMB in November, $SLR190,000 which is about $USD1500, amazing, Business to Abu Dhabi, First to Paris, Business on AA ( sadly ) to DFW and the same on the way back. Thanks for the tip guys, Amazing.
By the way, whats FT? Is that the Frequently Travelling site?
Gary – kinda curious, if you had seen the post on “some site” which asked bloggers NOT to blog it, would you have shared it??
“FT is actually a very small discussion board to which only a handful of experts are granted access”
Assuming you are referring to FlyerTalk, this is the strangest comment in the thread. Anybody can read the Mileage Run forum (much to the chagrin of many). And no, not everyone on FlyerTalk is an expert– contrary to what everyone there puts in their profile!
So let’s say you decided to stay in London and skip the last leg of the trip, would I be denied boarding when I tried to return to the states?
Why did you HT DeltaPoints who didn’t even post about it?
Stop overs in Europe possible?
Why all the bashing? Even though 50,000 people may read this post, maybe 5 will actually book this. Who wants to fly crappie AS biz across the pond?
“Who wants to fly crappie AS biz across the pond” I do, sorry to offend you, but I am a humble colonial Australian. I bow to your superiority America
Australians are also famous for being open and honest and saying what we feel and you, sir, are a dickhead
Booked CMB-AUH-JFK-DFW, with AUH-JFK in EY F for $972–a perfect return for my honeymoon.
Thank you Gary for posting this!
@hobo13 – I’m thrilled to see that you recognized that I was being completely sincere in that post.
Can I fly from CMB to JFK only and throw out the last segment JFK to DFW?
I am glad that someone is willing to pay for business so I can sit in F on my award ticket!
What a bunch of self centered ***** really cuz the top of the blog on FT said not to repost. Cuz I’m sure the airlines only follow blogs n not FT. Whiny babies. I’m sure the ones screaming won’t even book it.
@Shannon – You can, but it’s really hard to route through JFK. I’ve been trying to find dates in late Dec and not having any luck unfortunately.
Do the right thing and delete this thread.
@Jonathan Thanks. Will I still get to collect all AAdvantage miles even I miss the last segment(JFK-DFW)? I will travel before Labor Day. I was kinda surprised to find seats are so well supplied. Good luck!
Folks – the author of this blog is just a sleazeball trying to male commissions from CC links etc. Just don’t click on his links and go to the original CC company instead. Starve the bastard
@Chris – because Delta Points emailed me about the fare, that’s how I knew about it.
@Jay – probably not, for what it’s worth.
@Ray – I gained quite a lot from Flyertalk over many years, and hopefully gave back as much as I gained too (or at least I tried to). But I don’t participate there like I used to, my attentions have been elsewhere but I’ve also been made to feel very unwelcome there.
@ssk I believe that’s noted in my post
Yes, still available kids
@Gary, no need to defend yourself against these ingrates. Don’t understand why they even visit your blog when they only show up to complain. Bunch of whiners.
I say to hell with FT and its self righteous pricks who think every deal/trick/3x/1x/doubledecker/chainsaw/gummybear/compressed strike and I don’t know what else belongs to them.
If they piss me off too much I’ll post their effing db of 1x/3x/5x, and all those sweet LM tricks, every single effing one of them and it will be dozens times bigger than the tiny 3x list posted in November
Information like this is not proprietary. Gary is perfectly entitled to post it, regardless what the lynchmob/peanut gallery think.
Agreed. No need to defend yourself. Thank you for the post.
I agree, Sean.
I haven’t read FT lately and I don’t understand the need for secrecy.
Honestly…some people really do have hobbies other than flying and some people actually NEED to fly and a good deal is a good deal for them. I’m one of those who sit here amazed that some people actually fly as a hobby so that they can get to fly across the country while being catered to in first class. I secretly think that they have issues of inferiority and feel the need to be waited on.
Anyway,thanks for the post. I wish those who think that the OP somehow spoiled the beans would just go read a different blog!
I really believe the whole “secret” travel tricks thing is BS generally, but I find it extra ridiculous that someone posts a find in a public forum and then asks that people not repost. That’s ludicrous – why post it at all then? It’s one thug if you keep it under wraps via emails or a private list, but once you post somewhere like FT (which the critics in this thread point out is a large, well-read public forum) all bets are off by any rational thinking.
Thanks Gary. Didn’t choose to get in on this but I appreciate the notice.
The assumption that bloggers should or do read FlyerTalk before posting anything is absurd. Believe it or not, some of us do not make a habit of visiting FlyerTalk every day.
Gary chose to post about a published fare. I see nothing wrong with that.
He hat tipped Delta Points, but did Delta Points actually find this, or did he just see it on FT and email Gary.
The point is, unless DP found it himself (which I oh so highly doubt), he should have HT’ed Flyertalk.
Don’t see it anymore, guess it’s gone.
I get reader tips all the time. Some I publish, most I don’t. Either way, I don’t usually try to dig down to find out where they got their information from unless it is relevant to the story or I feel like additional evidence or information is needed about whatever it is. This was a situation where Gary could easily verify the tip by running a search on Orbitz so, in my mind, there was no need for him to dig into the tip further.