Award Alert: Redeem For a Family of 5 in Etihad’s First Apartment

by Gary Leff

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Etihad is dropping one of its two New York JFK – Abu Dhabi Airbus A380 flights, and putting the A380 on Paris – Abu Dhabi. That means there will be two daily Paris – Abu Dhabi flights with the A380.

The Etihad A380 features the ‘First Apartment’ — one of the three best first class products in the sky. There’s a separate bed and seat, and living space which was unprecedented when the product was introduced. In addition it’s only one of two first class products with a shower onboard.

And award space is wide open for Paris – Abu Dhabi. In fact there are at least 5 first class award seats on at least one of the flights most days in the fall.

American AAdvantage charges 62,500 miles per person each way for first class between Europe and Mideast. Price is the same if you continue on to the ‘Indian Subcontinent’ including the Maldives.

Chase Sapphire Prefered and other transferable Ultimate Rewards points transfer to Korean Air and Korean offers Paris – Abu Dhabi for 120,000 miles roundtrip in first class.

By the way availability for two passengers Abu Dhabi – Sydney is amazing as well so this is a phenomenal way to get from Europe to Australia. Mideast-Australia is 100,000 miles in First.

Etihad’s first apartment isn’t perfect. Some people find the bed too hard. I don’t. They don’t have the highest-end liquor or wine selections. Their shower experience doesn’t come close to Emirates.

However you have more room to get comfortable than almost anyone else offers, to spread out, to really create your own personal sense of space. They’re suites with doors, but the doors don’t make you claustrophobic. You aren’t sitting right beside the doors. It’s what I value — over choice of liquor — and it’s why I consider them to offer one of the very best first class products in the sky. And it’s been my favorite way to use miles.

When American AAdvantage can’t book Etihad’s available award seats here are the tricks to get the awards. Of course American Express, Citibank, and Barclays transferable points move to Etihad Guest itself.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  2. Are you stupid or just crazy :

    American AAdvantage charges 62,500 miles per person each way for first class between the US and Mideast. Price is the same if you continue on to the ‘Indian Subcontinent’ including the Maldives.

  4. I thought aa award routing only allowed a stop in Doha, Asia 1, or Asia 2 from Europe to Australia?

  5. @Christopher to be part of the same award Qatar is allowed as a partner (hence Doha) and so is Qantas, this would price as two separate awards

  7. @joke – I am probably both. However AAdvantage treats the Mideast and the Indian Subcontinent as the same region for award pricing. See https://viewfromthewing.com/2016/05/08/american-aadvantage-splits-up-the-middle-east-and-indian-subcontinent-award-regions/

    Here’s the award chart for travel to/from Europe. Note the same 62.5k first class price whether it’s Mideast or Indian subcontinent as a destination. As a result you can fly Paris – Abu Dhabi – Male for the same price as Paris – Abu Dhabi. (Or substitute Mumbai, Delhi, etc for Male.)

  8. @Gary Leff –

    What miles would you use to go from CDG to SYD in April of 2019? I believe there is Guest First available from CDG to AUH and then AUH to SYD and I have point flexibility. Thanks for all your help.

  13. Hi Gary, I found a day with 2 mle-auh-jfk in bus/first. 1 with aa miles and the other with asiana miles. Aa is ticketed but after 3 times asiana cant see the first auh-jfk segment in anything but economy. Calling California office. Any tricks? Shows on etihad website and expertflyer

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