Starting next January, Royal Air Maroc will begin flights to Beijing, 3x a week on a new Boeing 787. This on its own wouldn’t be major news, but the fact that you will now be able to fly from the East Coast (JFK/IAD/BOS/MIA) to Beijing via Casablanca for 44,000 transferable points (or less!) is news.
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East Coast to Beijing: 44,000 Etihad Guest miles flying Royal Air Maroc
That’s right – using 44,000 Etihad Guest miles, which transfer from Citi, Capital One, and Amex, you can fly any itinerary in the Royal Air Maroc system in Business Class. For instance, you can currently fly from JFK to Moscow or Nairobi (or anywhere else they fly) via Casablanca for just 44,000 miles. A stop over in Casablanca is said to be allowable, although it may or may not work for you.
Any flights that total over 2,000 miles are this price to the flight to Beijing should be no different. That’s tremendous value for 44,000 miles!
And of course, you may find, from time to time, a transfer bonus from any of the issuers to Etihad Guest, meaning that it could potentially be even cheaper.
Of course, some might recall that Virgin Atlantic used to have an even better deal to Beijing from London, where 75,000 Virgin Flying Club miles would net you a round trip flight on Air China in First Class (so, 37,500 miles each way for First), although there were sizeable surcharges. That route no longer exists, although you can still use Virgin miles for a heck of a deal on ANA in First Class for 110,000 – 120,000 Virgin miles.
Booking
To book, call the Etihad Call Center in Serbia at 1-877-690-0767. They can search dates for you (or you can create a Royal Air Maroc frequent flyer account to check first). Note that these flights are not yet bookable.
I do think that while availability tends to be great on RAM now, it will lessen once RAM joins Oneworld.
HT: OMAAT
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[…] For some time, you’ve been able to fly from any point in Royal Air Maroc’s network to any other point, via Casablanca, for 44,000 Etihad Guest miles. Just last week, I wrote about how their new route to Beijing could well become one of the best sweet spots around. […]