Etihad Guest

Some of the better value flight awards that are still available in the miles and points world are Etihad premium cabin awards booked with Aeroplan or American Airlines AAdvantage miles. Right now, however, it looks like Etihad is working hard to make sure that these awards aren't available to be booked and it's not even being subtle with how it's doing this.

One of the oddities in the miles and points world has long been the fact that Citi's ThankYou points don't transfer over to the American Airlines AAdvantage program. For years, Citi had a monopoly on the issuance of American Airlines co-branded credit cards (it still issues four of the airline's six available credit cards) but apart from a brief period in 2021, AAdvantage has never been a full-time ThankYou transfer partner.

In anticipation of a very busy July, Etihad has been trying to improve the check-in facilities that it offers at Abu Dhabi International airport and it has brought back a check-in option that we last saw back in December. This time, however, that check-in option also comes with a bonus offer.

Earlier this week, Etihad announced that it's offering bonuses of up to 30% on points transferred into the Etihad Guest program from (mostly) various hotel and credit card programs. There are a lot of familiar names on the list of bonused transfer partners but for most readers of this blog two, in particular, stand out and one should be avoided.

Etihad offers some of the best Business and First Class cabins in the skies and for a limited time, the airline's latest promotion allows travelers to book those cabins for 30% less than they usually cost. With Amex and Citi both offering a currency that can be transferred into the Etihad Guest program, this could be a good opportunity to book on of Etihad's premium cabins at a cost we don't usually see.

In a move that will please a lot of its members, the Etihad Guest program has announced that it will be changing its mileage expiration policy from the end of this month. On the way out is the policy under which miles expire regardless of account activity and in comes a policy where miles can be kept alive indefinitely.

Etihad Guest is back with a new mileage sale and, thanks to Etihad's partnership with American Airlines and generous award pricing, it represents a very good opportunity to purchase cheap miles that can be redeemed for great value awards on American Airlines...but you have just 4 days to make the most of this deal.

In this post I'm going to show how you can use a current Etihad promotion, a Marriott Bonvoy benefit and a current Marriott Bonvoy points sale to generate cheap Etihad Guest Miles which you can then use to book great value American Airlines premium cabin awards.

Etihad Guest has announced a partnership with Booking.com which allows members to earn miles for bookings made through a dedicated co-branded version of Booking.com’s website.

Etihad introduced the concept of allowing flyers to bid for a one cabin upgrade back in 2012 but, up until now, the only form of payment Etihad recognised for upgrades was cash. This has now changed.