I just flew ETIHAD business class from Washington DC to DELHI in late April. I Booked this one way fare on the phone with AA in February. The cost was 67,500 AA miles and $30. They included the ticket from DC to New York JFK in first class complimentary. The business class product was very nice. I would suggest getting the middle seats so you can make a nice double wide bed.
The Abu Dabhi lounge for ETIHAD is great. They will iron your clothes while you shower after the free massage. The food in the lounge is awesome: Sushi, Indian food, Arabic food, tons of beverages.
The business class seats had massager in them.
And great thing about AA was that I had to change my date of travel and there was no fee since their policy allows free changes if route is same.
I called AA last week looking for a one way award from California to Delhi. I had two options. I could have flown out of SFO on 5/22 but I didn't want to go that soon. The other available flight was out of Austin on 6/11 so I took that one. Gives me a reason to go to Austin and see my sister.
I will be flying AUS-ORD on AA metal first class and then ORD-AUH-DEL on EY metal in business class. 67,500 miles and $30, what a deal.
I called American for DEL --> ORD and back for award flight on Etihad and there was none available for the whole month of May.
Anyone have had success booking (maybe for other months also)? dates and miles used please?
Etihad allocates a small number of seats, and if they are sold out, they are sold out. On any airline, you cannot expect to get award seats in May for travel in May; that is completely unreasonable. Of course, some people will post that they got something at short notice, but some people also win the lottery. It does not mean you will.
To improve your chances, you have to book 11 months in advance, when AA booking opens. Even then there is no guarantee because EY's booking opens a couple of weeks earlier than AA does. Also, for example in J, EY allocates 2 seats per flight, so only 2 seats on ORD-AUH and JFK-AUH (widebodies) but also 2 seats on AUH-{ten cities in India} (narrowbodies). So if one couple books ORD-AUH-BLR, you're out of luck for ORD-AUH-{anywhere else} on that date since ORD-AUH is sold out.
Of course, EY might open up more award seats later, but to find out, you have to check constantly on EY's web site (with an EY FF program membership).
Expertflyer does not show EY awards; KVS does but it does not check and notify you automatically.
If you have some flexibility on departure and destination cities there are actually a fair amount of seats available on EY in May according the the KVS Tool (that's how I found my award ticket).
For example on May 20 DEL-AUH-JFK is available (EY211, EY101) as is HYD-JFK (EY275,EY101). Both in J. (as of 5/12/12).
Domestic tickets in India are not too expensive so maybe looking at BOM or HYD as alternative departure cities would yield some flights, and instead of ORD look at JFK as an option if that's an option for you.
What is KVS tools?
People are using AA miles to book EA, right? Is that only for business class only? or can we use in economy class also? Is there any milage chart shows how many miles needed for different destinations?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bruadair
If you have some flexibility on departure and destination cities there are actually a fair amount of seats available on EY in May according the the KVS Tool (that's how I found my award ticket).
People are using AA miles to book EA, right? Is that only for business class only? or can we use in economy class also? Is there any milage chart shows how many miles needed for different destinations?
EY from AUH to ORD only has J and Y classes while the AUH to JFK is a three class service. If you are okay with flying economy then there are some seats available in May as well, only first class was very difficult to find on short notice.
Just as a point of reference - got LHR/KHI in December, which I understand is a busy season. 2 x Business Class awards (60k miles + tax) , +/- 1 day from the requested days. Need a third seat, so bought the last ticket still works out to be around $1200 per seat in business - what a deal!
How can you see the award seats available on the EY website? I've signed up with their FF program but the best I can do to possibly see if seats are available is do a dummy booking but when it comes to the "Choose seats" button, no matter what dates I put in, there are no seats showing available. There's a red message saying I don't have enough miles. I'm guessing since it took me to the page, that seats are available?
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I booked MLE-AUH in J for 2 in October on one award, and then another award the next day AUH-JFK-RDU in F/Y. I deliberately did two awards so they are separate PNRs to allow me to make use of the car to both drop us off at overnight hotel in Abu Dhabi and pick us up the next day. I may even add an extra night in AUH.
For some odd reason when I look on ExpertFlyer F cabin is showing empty, but when I go to manage my booking on EtihadAirways.com it shows the cabin full and I cannot select seats. I guess I will have to call Etihad to select
