Other Middle East and Africa Frequent Flyer Programs - Etihad Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (and Belarus!)

I think Etihad's expansion into Russia has already been foreshadowed here, but here are first details of the expansion to former Eastern-bloc (resources rich?) nations Kazakhstan and Belarus.

Etihad expands through former Soviet Union (http://www.arabianbusiness.com/514905-etihad-expands-through-former-soviet-union-australia)
The airline, owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, plans to fly to Moscow in December, the Kazakh city of Almaty next year and then to the Belarus capital, Minsk, Etihad Chief Executive Officer James Hogan said in an interview on Thursday.

Niice (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borat)! ^

This is kinda of unrelated, but I had a dream last night that QR started flying to Minsk! Scary, eh? :D

Cheers,

This is kinda of unrelated, but I had a dream last night that QR started flying to Minsk! Scary, eh? :D

Cheers,

That's either not enough, or too much information... Mid-East, (ex-) Eastern Bloc, Far East, Easter... It's all too much info!

Some may quip EY is dreaming...
Others describe the nightmare.

So far it's been sweet for me.

Especially the doubling of flights to twice-daily ex-SYD.
JFK-AUH-SYD is still a backup possibility if the GF AA redemption gets messed up by GF (or the QF redemption isn't available).

It would be great if EY adds CMB to the list. Goodbye QR!