Yes, 20. Not bad!
As of today, you can transfer your Bilt Rewards points to Etihad Guest.
Amex, Citi and Capital One all transfer to Etihad Guest, according to our matrix of transferable points, so most of you already likely have a route to transfer to Etihad Guest with or without Bilt having them as a transfer partner.
Also, it’s easy to forget, or not know, that Etihad has what is probably the least consumer-friendly cancellation policy around. When we think of using miles for flights, we (these days) think of easy cancellations.
I know I will often use miles at almost any cost for a trip far out so I know I can cancel and get my miles back pretty easily (Alaska will keep their $12.50 partner booking fee and JetBlue will put the taxes and fees into a credit valid for a year, for example, so it’s not necessarily 100%). Otherwise you get a voucher goof for a year on most US carriers, which is generally fine, but maybe not so much if you don’t fly that airline often.
But Etihad goes the other way and, on top of the fact that its miles hard-expire after 3 years (I just redeemed 5,200 expiring miles for a $30 Amazon gift card at least!) they are incredibly punitive with nearly all cancellations per the below chart from their website:
| Ticket issued before 19 Jun 2025 as GuestSeat |
Ticket issued/reissued from 19 Jun 2025 |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time to departure | Value | Comfort | Deluxe | |
| Within 24 hours | X | X | X | 75% |
| 1 to 7 days | 75% | 75% | 75% | 50% |
| 8 to 21 days | 50% | 50% | 50% | 25% |
| More than 21 days | 25% | 25% | 25% | Free |
Indicates fee as a percentage of the fare
Business Class awards via EtihadGuest seem to “start” at Comfort but even with that, as soon as your 24 hour risk free deadline passes, they best you can do is 25% of your miles back. And then, per this Award Wallet post, they may use some convoluted formula, which I honestly don’t 100% understand after reading it 3 times, to give you back miles instead of cash for the cash part of your booking.
Now, Etihad Guest can still represent some great value. While I’d definitely prefer to book Eithad flights using a partner like AAdvantage (1st choice) or Air Canada, Etihad has some pretty awesome pricing on JetBlue where a Mint seat from the East Coast to the Caribbean will run you just 40,000 Etihad Guest miles. You can also use them on AA flights, but the sweet spot that existed there for a long time is long gone…
I’ll summarize with:
- Happy to see another new Bilt partner
- Bilt points are more valuable than their other transfer partners you may already have access to, so Bilt would be a last resort on a transfer to EY.
- Make sure you have studied up on Etihad Guest before trying to transfer any points over…
Thoughts?
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