Etihad business class award space is wide open from Boston, Chicago, Washington DC, and New York JFK to Abu Dhabi and beyond, as first noted by Find Flights For Me.
While Etihad is a partner of both American AAdvantage and Air Canada Aeroplan, this space won’t be bookable using those points, and Etihad’s own program is both costly and comes with draconian cancellation penalties. Fortunately, you can book the space using Air France KLM’s Flying Blue as reasonable rates.
Use this not just to fly to Abu Dhabi (which is a bit over an hour’s drive to Dubai) but beyond to other destinations in the Mideast, India or vicinity.
- Flying Blue charges 88,000 – 100,000 points each way for U.S. to Abu Dhabi (based on distance) with onward connecting flights additional. Best availability late summer through November, though not limited to that.
- And they partner with all of the major points transfer currencies like Chase, American Express and Capital One.
- Over the weekend Citi posted a ratio of 1:1.25 for transfers and did not list an end date. In fact it doesn’t show up as a promotion. My hunch was this was a holiday weekend website mistake, rather than a new, higher transfer ratio – we’ll see.
Find Flights For Me notes you can’t use the Flying Blue award calendar to find available space. Instead,
Searching is a pain and manual search required. Air France also glitched out after a few searches so you’ll have to clear cookies, use incognito, or the app.
A segment of their customers are no longer welcome in the United States, so it kinda makes sense: more availability. Not saying that’s ‘right’ but it is the new reality. Profit off others’ suffering?
Dont see any availability in Flying Blue.
Delta is more premium than Etihad!
@Tim Dunn
Etihad has ‘the Residence’ which is a three-room suite with s separate bed and private restroom on the A380. While I like the Delta One Suite with the door on their a350, it is not ‘more premium’ at all. You comment a lot on here, and you know better.