Booking JetBlue via Etihad: An exercise in frustration, but great when it works

One of the best values I’ve found in pursuing the JetBlue 25 for 25 promotion has been attempting to use Etihad Guest miles to book JetBlue. Yes, these flights do count toward the 25 for 25 promotion. However, the website is full of quirks, so booking them isn’t necessarily for the faint of heart.

Important to know: Etihad has terrible change and cancellation policies

Before getting farther into this post, you need to know that Etihad has awful change and cancellation policies. They recently made some updates, but the moral of the story is that you don’t want to book anything through Etihad where plans are uncertain. Read more about the latest change and cancellation fees here: Etihad adds award “fare buckets” and increases change fees.

I generally do not recommend booking via Etihad Guest unless you are looking at close-in travel. That said, given how cheap some JetBlue awards van be via Etihad Guest, at times even when close to departure, it can be a compelling option to keep in mind.

My use case: Good deals for JetBlue 25 for 25

I mentioned on a recent podcast episode that using Etihad Guest miles for certain JetBlue flights can be an excellent value. The reason I am currently interested in this is of course because my family is pursuing the JetBlue 25 for 25 promotion, whereby we are hunting down 1.4 million JetBlue points and 25 years of Mosaic 1 status.

The 25 for 25 promotion requires flying Blue fares or higher (“Blue Basic” fares do not qualify). We have been able to confirm with JetBlue that even partner award flights count toward the promotion so long as they book into a Blue fare class or higher. I have personally already booked part of my trip via Etihad and I was able to select seats for free, which wouldn’t be included with a Blue Basic fare. I am as confident as I can be that the Etihad award I’ve booked is indeed a Blue fare.

While I would be hesitant to use Etihad to book a flight far in advance or where there is a tight turnaround involved, in some cases Etihad can make for a great value for booking close-in flights.

An example: Martha’s Vineyard to Orlando a couple of days in advance for 15K miles

I originally began stumbling down this rabbit hole when I noticed an opportunity to pick up two airports for a decent award price. I had considered a trip this week flying from Martha’s Vineyard to Washington, DC (DCA) to Orlando (MCO) using 15,000 Etihad Guest miles and $29.93. I found this award via search tool Award Tool.

That compared very well to cash rates for the same flight. The option connecting at DCA was $526 for a Blue Basic fare (note that the screen shot below also shows a $407 option through New York’s JFK airport, but that was less appealing to me as I was hoping to check off two airports, both DCA and MCO, with this award). A Blue fare was higher still.

Unfortunately, I didn’t end up booking that award right away and then it proceeded to come and go as I changed plans a number of times.

That experience led me to the most frustrating piece of trying to book JetBlue awards via Etihad: the Etihad website is very buggy and booking these awards isn’t always easy.

If Etihad doesn’t like your airport pairs, find another pair and then switch

One of the early problems I encountered with the Etihad website is its apparent inability to recognize certain airport pairs. For instance, Award Tool showed me this award from Buffalo to Nantucket (via JFK), which I originally found for a close-in date (my example here is further in the future).

However, when I went to the Etihad website and tried to search for the same award, the search tool made it look like the Nantucket airport code (ACK) was not found.

Thankfully, there is a relatively easy workaround when you encounter something like the above. Start by trying other origin airports. For instance, I know that JetBlue offers nonstop flights from New York JFK to Nantucket (ACK), so I tried entering JFK in the “Flying From” field. That did the trick — suddenly the search tool could find “ACK” without issue.

Once I clicked the Nantucket airport to fill the “Flying to” field, I simply went back and changed the “Flying from” airport to Buffalo (BUF). That didn’t affect the destination field. From there, I could simply hit “search”.

Sure enough, that award showed up at 6K miles and $24 one way.

Farther in advance, the value as compared to a cash fare isn’t quite as strong as it could be close-in, but it still exceeds 2c per point as compared to the Blue fare for the same flight.

It also makes for a nice discount over using JetBlue points for the same flight, which would cost 10,800 points one way.

Over multiple passengers, the savings found booking via Etihad Guest can certainly add up.

Watch out: You’ll need more miles than you think

A word of caution for the uninitiated: Etihad Guest is notorious for charging a few more miles than you’d expect during the final checkout process.

For instance, those flights that appear to cost 6,000 miles per passenger actually cost 6,030 miles per passenger. You won’t see it until the final checkout page, but the price for four passengers here actually cost me 24,120 miles in the end despite showing a price of 24,000 miles at each step until the final checkout screen.

This is unfortunately a known and maddening aspect of the Etihad Guest booking experience. I transferred a thousand more miles than I needed to because I wasn’t sure exactly how many I would need, though in hindsight since Capital One allows transfers in increments of 500, I should have only overshot by 500 miles.

Add your JetBlue TrueBlue number later

During the booking process, you can enter a loyalty account number for each passenger by expanding the “Loyalty programme number” field. Don’t do it.

Even though the field expanded by that link offers a drop-down menu that includes JetBlue under the loyalty programs, if you try to enter TrueBlue numbers, you’ll get this error:

The same error occurs when you check the “Book for someone else” box and try to enter JetBlue TrueBlue numbers. I had no trouble moving forward through the booking process once I stopped trying to enter TrueBlue numbers and I had no problem adding our TrueBlue numbers in the JetBlue app later on (including switching my loyalty account from Etihad Guest to JetBlue TrueBlue).

You can select seats for free on Etihad-booked JetBlue awards despite what it says at first

I’d heard from a couple of readers that JetBlue awards booked via Etihad Guest do not include free seat selection, which would indicate that they may be Blue Basic fares, which would not qualify for the 25 for 25 promotion. I think this misconception about seat selection comes from expanding the pricing information on the landing page when you expand for more information about the award.

As you can see above, the Etihad site initially seems to suggest that a “Value” award on JetBlue does not include free seat selection.

However, if you continue through the booking flow, Etihad eventually prompts you to select seats through Etihad — and seat selection is indeed free.

Note that you do not have to select seats through Etihad — I booked first without seats and then later selected seats for free in the JetBlue app, but as you can see it is indeed possible to select seats for free during the booking flow.

I can further confirm that the cabin information on the JetBlue side shows “Core/Economy” just like all of my other “Blue” fares.

Unfortunately, there seem to be many false positives

As all of the above suggests, it can sometimes be a great deal to book a JetBlue award through Etihad Guest. Furthermore, availability can sometimes be excellent — I’ve found four (or more) seats available via Etihad Guest in several situations that could fit my own plans.

Unfortunately, the flip side of that coin is that I have found a lot of false positives. I have frequently seen what appears to be availability through AwardTool only to click through and get this error.

A few times, I’ve clicked through and initially seen availability but then changed airports to check another option only to see this error repeatedly thereafter, even when going back to the initial award pair I’d found.

It feels like there has to be some sort of cookie issue causing that error in some cases, but I tried numerous browsers and devices and often ran into that error. My advice is to book it when you see it available because it might not be if you click around for long.

Unfortunately, I also had one situation where I could get as far as seat selection, but no matter how many times I tried, I couldn’t get to the payment stage (refreshing allowed me to select seats again, but clicking “continue” to go to the payment page just kept the button spinning).

Nonetheless, I can confirm that it is indeed possible to make a booking through Etihad with a little persistence.

Bottom Line

Booking JetBlue awards via Etihad Guest can be a great value, but it can also be an exercise in frustration. Ordinarily, I would say that the extremely punitive Etihad Guest cancellation policy makes booking through Etihad a nonstarter, but given the chance for 25 JetBlue airports as cheaply as possible, I find myself understanding why someone might accept the risk. And certainly when close to departure, it could make a lot of sense to book through Etihad; just keep in mind the booking techniques you may need to employ to muscle the site into showing the award you need.

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