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One Mile at a Time has flagged widespread availability of Etihad first class awards bookable via American Airlines within 30 days of departure. While that’s been a predictable pattern for Etihad awards for quite some time now, notable here is that Etihad is now putting its A380 with first class apartment seats back on this route. There was widespread availability on the route for the next 30 days this morning. While some of that has dried up, I did find a date with 4 seats available in A380 first class just a little while ago, so some is still hanging around (and there is a lot of availability in first class on the 787).
The Deal
- Etihad is once again flying its A380 between New York and Abu Dhabi and plentiful near-term award availability has been released to American Airlines (though many of those seats have dried up now — still, it’s worth keeping an eye on this pattern).
Quick Thoughts
For quite a while now, Etihad has only been releasing award seats to partners up to 30 days in advance of departure. Nothing has changed with that policy here. However, what is notable is that Etihad has added additional capacity to the New York to Abu Dhabi route, with the A380 now operating from New York JFK to/from Abu Dhabi.
That’s great news for those with American Airlines miles to use since this route can be booked for 115,000 miles one-way in first class with no carrier-imposed surcharges.
When One Mile at a Time first reported this today, there was availability every day for the rest of this month and the first couple of weeks of May.
Etihad operates first class cabins on both its 787 and A380 on this route, but you’ll only find the “apartments” seats on the A380. Surprisingly, multiple seats were available on many days. For instance, I saw four seats available in A380 apartments on at least one flight.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take advantage of this availability for travel over the next 30 days, but it’s great to see first class “apartments” return to service between New York and Abu Dhabi and to see Etihad’s partner availability continue to at least follow the 30-days-in-advance pattern. I’ll have to keep an eye on this as we get closer to dates where I potentially could use it.
Note that these seats were not available via Air Canada Aeroplan. I don’t think Aeroplan has had access to Etihad first class ever since the big debacle last year where Etihad released many seats to Aeroplan only to backtrack after taking more bookings than they apparently wanted.
Again, I found this most interesting for the potential chance to find Etihad apartments departing the US once again and for the availability of multiple seats. That makes me want to beef up my collecting of American Airlines miles again knowing that this option is potentially back on the table.
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Looking forward to trying the A380 in 2 weeks.. Snagged a Seat and then a connection to TLV…. Perfect!
Thanks, Nick, for the heads up. We’re going to Japan and Thailand but not until June.
This will be on my radar for our return flights cause I’ve been keeping my ear peeled for news on the return of Etihad’s Apartments on the A380. Loved the A380 when we flew Emirates JFK-MXP.
I tried the cash option I heard about Etihad leaving Bangkok but I didn’t come across the reduced fair Jeb Brooks spoke about in his video.
This has given me a sure way of trying Etihad apartments since you can be 30 days out and find availability.
Keep up the good work!
Stop revealing this … No wonder all airlines are putting awards on hold.