Etihad Guest is the loyalty program of Etihad Airways, and I am trying to get a hang of it ever since they have been associated with Jet Airways. The thing is, Etihad is not such a great program on its own for mileage earning and burning, because the burn on Etihad’s own flights is dynamic and too darn expensive.
However, Etihad Guest offers some hidden gems for those of us in India. Etihad, just like for all their Etihad partners, offers a redemption chart of Etihad Guest miles on Jet Airways as well. Here is the chart in PDF for Domestic and International Routes. This can be a pretty useful chart since you get to travel with lesser number of miles than Jet Airways’ own JP program. For instance, for Mumbai – Delhi, the redemption offer on EY’s program is 5459 Etihad Miles + taxes (in economy) while on Jet Airways’ own program you would pay 8500 JP Miles + taxes. Downside is that you need to make bookings manually and contact the call center at least 14 days out to be able to do these reservations.
Etihad’s bonus offer
Etihad Guest has been a partner with Citibank (PremierMiles, Prestige and other Citi credit cards in India) as well as with American Express Membership Rewards for conversion to Etihad Guest Miles.
Remember, 2 Membership Reward points / 1 Citi PremierMile / 0.25 Citi Prestige points convert to 1 Etihad Guest mile.
However, Etihad is running a bonus offer at the moment, where if you convert your points to Etihad Guest miles by 30 November 2014, you get an extra 20% miles on all points transferred. The 20% bonus will hit your account within a week after the original miles are transferred.
Not to forget, with the Citi Prestige, if you transfer 5000 points to convert to 20,000 miles within the first 6 months of the card activation, you also get another 30% bonus from Etihad Guest (6000 bonus miles). I am trying to see if a double-dip can happen, and just asked for my points to be transferred to Etihad from Citibank, and I will report back on the results shortly.
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The double bonus works. Got both the citi as well as etihad bonuses.
Thanks Ajay for the tip on how to use Citibank Premiermiles Miles on Jet Airways, and that too more cheaply. However, I am not a member of Etihad Guest, and I tried to join. Several attempts yesterday to join did not succeed: Every time the site said:Sorry we are currently facing some technical issues. Please try again. Any ideas on how else I can become a member?
@AJ: Not directly answering the question, but just few pointers for folks redeeming EY miles on Jet Airways.
1. EY do not levy YQ on international award ticket booked on 9W (my experience) and EY mileage redemption costs are lower on most of the routes operated by 9W.
2. If you booked award on 9W using EY miles, and decide to cancel the award later the miles are forfeited and taxes refunded (on the upside you can make date changes and there is no change fee for the first change).
3. You cannot top up EY account by buying miles if you are short on miles for award redemption for flights on any of Etihad partners including 9W (although you can buy miles if you are redeeming on Etihad airways)
Ajay
since premier miles was not transferable to jet i was thinking about transferring some of it to etihad when i saw your article but since you say one has to do manually and 14 days before it wont workout.I don’t plan that far ahead. Also for jetairways redemption with jetmiles one just pay with just the points right?I dont remember about a significant tax when i did last time at jet website
Anwar
Ajay – did you find out if city prestige double dip possible?
One more qs not directly related – do you know if I downgrade prestige card to premier miles, what conversion rate will apply? I recEntry converted my premier miles to prestige because of the arbitrage opportunity. Was wondering what happens if I go back
@Arin waiting to see how the double dip works out. I have no idea on the downgrade, maybe a call to the Citi service line is in order for you!
@rohan – today I was quoted Ra 600 for CCU – Blr redemption
AJ,
although Etihad website says the Indian AMEX conversion ratio is 1.6 MR / 1 Etihad mile.
When we go to redeem the MR for miles, it shows the ratio as 2 MR for 1 Etihad mile.
Just FYI..
@bluecrabs good catch. I had forgotten about the fact that amex moved everyone to 2MR is 1 mile
Thanks for the update, Ajay! Looking forward to your update on the tax amount.
@ Mireed – Thanks. I can do same with Etihad as well, was wondering if there is something online where I can do my own research 🙂
@ Arin One other way i know is to call AA advantage desk and ask for the availability. But, to my experience, the availability on jet airways website and AA agents are different (AA agents, much lesser)
How do you check jet reward availability? I don’t have required miles/activity in Jet to use their site. Any other way?
Thanks for your quick reply…. looking forward to the update.
Do you have any idea of, How tax is calculated? Is it equivalent/ same as the Jet airways award ticket taxes?
Thanks
@mireed i am trying to book a ticket and will report back. I expect a fuel surcharge to be added but i could be wrong