Tag Archives for etihad.
Air France KLM’s Flying Blue is already the best frequent flyer program in SkyTeam. And it’s relevant to Americans because every major points transfer program partners with Air France KLM, making their points easy to get, and there are even frequent transfer bonuses.
Their points are about to get more value since Air France KLM and Etihad have announced a new partnership.
Etihad has relaunched Airbus A380 service on the London – Abu Dhabi route, and First Apartment award seats are wide open between now and early June 2024.
Etihad business class award space is wide open this spring, for up to four passengers. And there’s even two first class awards many dates from Washington Dulles as well.
Etihad’s Airbus A380 is returning to the skies, and with it their “First Apartment” which are among the most impressive inflight suites in the world. And award space is currently wide open on the London Heathrow – Abu Dhabi route with as many as 9 award seats per flight in some cases (book the whole cabin), and up to two daily flights on the aircraft.
Etihad Airways parked its 10 Airbus A380s during the pandemic, and its CEO said they’d likely never fly again. That’s sad because their best passenger experience was on this aircraft. Indeed, many airlines had their best seats and amenities on the world’s largest passenger jet.
Despite appearing that the planes would never comes back the airline has announced their return, and the Etihad A380 features some of the best seats in the world.
Etihad has great business class award space for two passengers between New York JFK, Chicago O’Hare, Washington Dulles and Abu Dhabi for travel from January through end of schedule. You can use Etihad to connect onward to places in the Mideast or destinations in Asia like the Maldives and India.
And there’s a handful of dates with two first class award seats available, also which I’m seeing on the Washington Dulles route.
You can earn 25,000 Etihad Guest miles per 3+ day Avis rental. This is in addition to the usual base miles earned renting cars.
Don’t let the fact that the offer is for Etihad Guest miles stop you. Etihad miles are easy to get since the program is a transfer partner of American Express, Capital One and Citibank.
Etihad has been posting odd clues in advance of a Wednesday announcement. One of those, discussed below, surely had to be trolling given the past speculation about the carrier joining Star Alliance. I do not know what tomorrow’s announcement entails, but I am told officially by Star Alliance that it is not their joining the global partnership.
Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways is raising its pet in cabin fee from $200 to an incredible $1500 on October 15. This fee can be paid in cash or miles at a per-mile value of just below $0.007 (which is itself awful). And even if you buy a separate seat for the animal, you still pay the pet fee. That extra seat is even mandatory in premium cabins.
Emirates lost the ability to book redemptions on JetBlue in business class over the summer, suggesting something was up with their partnership. We learned in the past several days that the partnership is actually ending October 30th. But JetBlue isn’t going to be down a partner. Instead a new earning and redemption partnership is coming between JetBlue and Etihad. Etihad also partners with American Airlines and with Air Canada.
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 »
