Air Berlin is busy wrapping up operations after they filed for insolvency, and they will need to close their flights by October 28.  Out here, we’ve been sitting on the sidelines and watching this unfold, not wanting to contribute to the noise already out there about Air Berlin. We’ll share our thoughts on Air Berlin’s demise at a later time.

For now, however, let’s talk about the frequent flyer program, TopBonus. Air Berlin had closed out the program as of September 15, and one by one, all the partner carriers where you could credit miles also pulled out. This included oneworld airline partners, the part owner of Air Berlin & TopBonus, Etihad Airways and others in the Etihad Airways Partners list such as Jet Airways.

AirBerlin will also leave the oneworld alliance on October 27, 2017, which means all the status earned with this airline will be useless across the oneworld alliance after this date.

Having said that, Etihad has stepped in to provide one last opportunity for people to burn their TopBonus miles for flights on Etihad.

Till November 17, 2017, Etihad will offer reduced rates to redeem flights with airberlin points. You can travel on these tickets till March 28, 2018. Redemptions are only possible in the Economy Cabin and not business or first class.

Redeem your miles and fly with Etihad Airways from Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, and Munich or Zurich and Geneva to heavenly travel destinations in the Middle East, Africa, Asia or Australia. Benefit now from the reduced mile offers:

• For 25,000 miles you can fly to the Gulf states, to South and Central Asia (Bangladesh, India, Iran, Nepal, Pakistan, Kuwait etc)
• For 30,000 miles you can fly to Africa and the Middle East
• For 35,000 miles you can fly to South East Asia and the Far East (Thailand, Indonesia, China etc)
• For 50,000 miles you can fly to Australia

Here is the complete award chart.

Of course, there is a large amount of co-pay as well to be done to use these points, which are indicative listed below (for flights from Germany)

• Abu Dhabi (197,46 €)
• Bangkok/Phuket (244,5€)
• Malé (243,21€)
• Colombo / Seychelles (233,21€)
• Sydney (273,85€)
• Johannesburg (233,21€)
• Tokyo (243,21€)
• Kuala Lumpur (243,21€)

Here is how to make the redemption:

• Check the route network of Etihad Airways and the miles needed to book your award flights.

• Award flights can only be booked by phone under the special hotline +49 69 15 32 53 484. You can reach the hotline Mondays through Fridays, from 9am to 5pm.

• The corresponding mileage will be deducted from your topbonus account after successfull booking.

Here is hoping some of you could benefit from this new window for Airberlin exit. 

PS. Drop us a line if you think we could help.