Wide Open Etihad Business (And First!) Class Award Space To Mideast, India

by Gary Leff

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. These are bookable at saver rates using American AAdvantage miles.

American AAdvantage is offering this space online. Oddly, while Etihad is also a partner of Air Canada’s Aeroplan, these premium cabin awards don’t show up on the Aeroplan website. I haven’t called Aeroplan to see whether their call centers can book the space.

Business Class Awards For Four Passengers From Etihad’s North American Gateways

Etihad is making tremendous amounts of business class award space available between New York JFK, Chicago O’Hare, Washington Dulles, and Toronto to Abu Dhabi. From there you can connect, for instance, throughout the Mideast as well as India, Pakistan, and the surrounding region (including places like the Maldives).

American AAdvantage is even showing this space on their website. It’s relatively new that this has been fixed, although it doesn’t appear to me that all of the space shows at AA.com. For instance there does seem to be some space in the fall bookable by phone, though online for March and April it’s available for four passengers most days regardless of departure point.

Here’s availability for four passengers from Washington Dulles in April:

Here’s availability for four passengers from New York JFK in April:

And here’s availability for four passengers from Chicago O’Hare in April:

American AAdvantage charges 70,000 miles each way for business class – whether you’re terminating in the Mideast or continuing to the ‘Indian subcontinent’ and connecting flights within the U.S. are included, too, if you can find saver award space on American (or on Alaska, JetBlue).

First Class Is Available, Too

Two passenger first class awards between Washington Dulles and Abu Dhabi are bookable in March.

The DC route isn’t an Airbus A380 (‘first apartment’), but it’s the one where first class awards have been the most prevalent, and the airline does offer a true first class suite.

Advantage charges 115,000 miles each way whether flying to the Mideast or Indian Subcontinent.

Book Now

These award seats weren’t bookable last week, and at this level of availability I don’t expect them to last. If you’re booking through AAdvantage there is no fee to cancel and redeposit, so go ahead and make a booking and figure out later whether or not you can use it.

(HT: A.S.)

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 »

More articles by Gary Leff »

Comments

  1. Phantom space? Been erroring out for me over the last couple of weeks when actually trying to book for my March 2024 dates from IAD.

  2. Phantom space, it seems. Been searching for this for a while and AA always shows good availability the last month or so of the schedule but most/all is phantom.

  3. I’m getting the dreaded “choose a different flight or fare” error when trying to book these.

  4. I’ll admit, I havent tried on the phone… but even if I assume AA website gives false negatives, when Aeroplan also isnt showing the space my gut says its phantom.

  5. Incidentally, AA has been doing the same phantom space stuff with USA-HEL routes on AY late summer. Very aggravating.

  6. * Do they fly to Israel?
    * Any options from West Coast?
    * Alas not quite early enough for summer 2024

  9. @Gary, did you book online or called in to book?

    All I’m getting are errors like other posters.

  10. @JimC – I did book online successfully for myself and a couple of others, which is why it didn’t seem like phantom space, but I may have gotten ‘lucky’ choosing from among non-phantom dates

  12. You should do a post on how Aeroplan had lost Etihad J and all of Oman Air and Thai.

  14. Successfully booked EY F in November. US and Australia call center couldn’t see the space, but HK center did. Good thing for persistence.

  16. Note that Aeroplan now does not allow online booking of awards to Mumbai – not sure if it’s Europe-BOM only, but apparently due to heavy “fraud” – no idea why BOM has been singled out!

  17. It shows there are 4 seats available but let’s you book only when u search for 2. That’s the max Etihad releases to AA as far as I know. Were u able yo book more than 2 pax on any date ?

  19. I see economy for 45,000 points available almost anytime, but thus far no success with any of the two premium cabins for any date or location of departure/destination.

    Economy for 45,000 from anyplace in America is pretty good though. But I don’t want to fly all the way there in economy.

  20. Phantom space unfortunately for the 20 dates that I checked (each showed up to 4 available seats…). Not a single one could be booked.

  21. Earlier this year I booked united crazy deal to India for a random day in Mar, now this deal popped up and I was able to book from India back to iad business, 54 dollars in taxes, 70k

  22. I was just able to book for a date in March for 4 people that ticketed. Had to try 10 different dates until I found one on a Tuesday. 23 hour layover in Abu Dhabi before flying to Tel Aviv the next day!

  23. It appears few folks were able to book, while most of us sees these as phantom. Question to those who booked please share your secrets 😉

Comments are closed.