For years I’ve encouraged people to take advantage of a huge sweet spot in the Etihad Guest award chart.
The long and short of it was that you could book a Transcontinental First Class (3 cabin) flight on American Airlines (JFK/MIA/BOS-LAX/SFO) for just 25,000 Etihad Guest Miles.
It was *supposed* to be 32,500 per their award chart, but in reality I booked this a half dozen times, always for just 25,000 miles.
Etihad Guest miles can be transferred from both American Express Membership Rewards and Capital One Miles.
I don’t claim to have *found* the sweet spot, but I certainly popularlized it in some way – with countless HTs on Instagram for it.
I’d put out a couple of IG reels on the topic:
View this post on Instagram
In any event, Ben from One Mile at a Time reports on the new Etihad partner award chart which is distance based and *probably* will really charge First Class prices for First Class.
The new chart shows 50,000 miles in Business and 67,000 miles in First. Fine if you have Etihad Guest miles stored up, but hardly a deal. In fact, you’d often find AA’s own Websavers to be cheaper.
The only silver lining that ben notes is that you’ll be able to book the awards online – though that’s not that great if the award rate stinks.
So – you have TWO DAYS to book at the old rates, by phone – IF you can find Z award availability as I discuss on this article on locating American Airlines award seats available to partners.
Questions?
Let me know below in the comments, on Twitter, or in the private MilesTalk Facebook group. And don't forget to follow me on Instagram for all sorts of tips on miles, points, credit cards, and travel.
If this post helped you, please consider sharing it!
You can find credit cards that best match your spending habits and bonus categories at Your Best Credit Cards.
New to all of this? My “introduction to miles and points” book, MilesTalk: Live Your Wildest Travel Dreams Using Miles and Points is available on Amazon and at major booksellers.
