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Etihad is offering a 25% bonus for transfers from one of their partners to Etihad Guest. This bonus includes Citi ThankYou points which normally transfer at a 1:1 ratio. Under this promotion which runs through the end of the year, ThankYou points will transfer at a 1:1.25 ratio.
Cheap American Airlines Redemptions
Etihad is a partner of American Airlines and has a very good award chart for their flights. For example, a one-way ticket between North America and Europe is 20,000 miles in coach or 50,000 in business class. Considering the transfer bonus, these flights would only cost 16,000 or 40,000 ThankYou points respectively. Etihad also doesn’t seem to charge fuel surcharges, meaning you should only have to pay the taxes.
For the full details of this bonus along with a descirption of how to search for award space and book tickets with Etihad Guest, see: this MileValue post.
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[…] 25% Transfer Bonus to Etihad Guest: Europe from 16K Each Way with No Fuel Surcharges […]
Does Etihad allow stopovers or open jaws on their award tickets on AA?
Oh, also important to note that AA’s award chart is changing in a few months, so it’s almost certain that the best deals on Etihad’s chart for AA travel will also change.
My quick take on this is that it’s a very good offer — but not quite as good as “advertised.”
What seems to be the deal is that Etihad copies AA’s own award chart. Like it’s 20K off-peak economy to Europe and S. America 2. So it’s 20K for these same flights booked on Etihad. If you’re not going off-peak, though, it’s 20% off the regular award prices.
So the right way to look at this is that you can redeem off the AA award chart for 20% off by transferring your points to Etihad.
A couple of major caveats are in order, too. First, you seem restricted to AA-only flights. That’s a big problem for many bookings, as AA’s partners almost always offer more inventory than AA itself. Second, you can’t get connecting domestic flights with AA’s partners. For instance, if you redeem 20,000 AA miles off-peak to Chile, you can get the USA to Santiago flight PLUS a domestic Chilean flight on LAN (you can also take the USA to Santiago flight on LAN, where there’s likely much more inventory). If you do this Etihad deal, you’re only getting as far as Santiago. It would likely be worth the extra 4000 miles for the connecting flight.
Does Ethiad have access to AA inventory? There’s plenty of forums on booking Ethiad flights using AA but I haven’t seen anything the other way around.