Etihad Amex Transfer Bonus
American Express has a new transfer bonus and it has the potential to be a good one. Through 6/15/16 they are offering a 30% bonus on transfers from Membership Rewards to the Etihad Guest program. Instead of the normal 1:1 transfer ratio, with this bonus transfers are credited at 1:1.3. So the question remains, is this a good value?
How to Transfer Membership Rewards to Etihad Guest
American Express makes transferring Membership Rewards to their partners easy. To transfer your points, simply login to your Membership Rewards account and click on the transfer option under “travel”. You will see all of the transfer partners listed and the Etihad 30% bonus will be automatic. You will need to link your Etihad Guest account before you are able to transfer points to it.
The Etihad Guest Program & JFK-AUH
Etihad Guest is not the cheapest program around, but that won’t matter for some. For example, Etihad with its First Apartments has what is widely considered the best first class product in the world right now. The best part is they fly it from New York to Abu Dhabi.
New York to Abu Dhabi on a low level redemption costs 117,556 miles plus $179.30. Another way to look at it is that it would cost less than 91,000 Membership Rewards points for that first class flight. That is still a ton of points, but cheaper than booking with American AAdvantage. Of course this type of redemption isn’t for everyone, but it isn’t a terrible deal either.
Etihad Partner Award Charts
At Family Travel for Real Life in Orlando last week, Richard @thepointsjock spoke a bit about the value of Etihad’s partner award charts. Some of the charts are a really terrible value, but some are gems in the rough. (For example their American award chart is fairly cheap.) Etihad has a total of 26 airline partners and each one has its own individual chart. You can find all of the partner charts here.
Booking with Etihad miles on their partners isn’t the easiest thing to do since it requires calling in and finding an agent who knows what they are doing, but you can still get a great value. Richard wrote an article at the Points Guy detailing his experience booking an ANA flight. While the ANA chart has since changed, he describes the process of booking which is useful.
Is This For Everyone?
I would say that Etihad Guest is definitely not a beginner level program, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If you are willing to take some time to study and learn, it is possible to get some great deals with Etihad Guest miles. Add in the 30% transfer bonus and I’m sure this will make sense to a lot of you, but just make sure you know what you are getting into ahead of time.
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[…] New 30% Amex Transfer Bonus for Etihad: Finding Value & Studying the Partner Charts […]
The chatter in response to the Amex offer seems to be that there may be sweetspots (little analysis fiven in blogosphere) but that the process is fraught with difficulty getting it to work. Some stories of success but a good number about Edihad agents not being able to ticket even when spoon fed flight details with elibgible fares. Seems also to be an issue with miles expiring before the 3 year hard deadline, at least reported by a couple of commenters. I have not tried the Etihad syatem and also looking for experience to learn from
Its pretty much Etihad saying the same thing like Emirates. “Dont let those travel hackers on board. Rich people only…”
Is there any way to find out about fuel surcharge for redemption for partnet awards?
How about an analysis on the sweet spots?