Jan 13, 2015, 2:43 pm
Last edit by: SingaporeDon
Booking Award Seats on EY / Etihad Airways Using AA / AAdvantage Miles
This thread is about "how to" book Etihad / EY award seats using AA AAdvantage miles. This wiki is new, so anyone with 90/90 who wishes to add helpful information is, of course, urged to do so.
- You cannot search or book awards for travel on EY (Etihad) on www.aa.com
- You can search award availability on EY's website. Look for seats on flights operated by Etihad Airways labeled as "GuestSeats".
- You have to call AA to book them. You may need to request the AA agent to look up the inventory one segment at a time in order to find the inventory in their system. OR:
- Your best bet is to call AA Australia (+61 2-9101-1948 ) - although the call center is actually in Suva, Fiji -as they can see the inventory reliably, and you can book (or put the EY segments on hold so you can flesh out the award afterward).
- A handy EY route map is at http://flights.etihad.com/routemap
- The applicable AAdvantage miles award chart is the oneworld and Other Airline Award Chart
- Award routing rules are in the wikipost of this thread
- It can be instructive to read about our members' successful award bookings on EY using AAdvantage miles in the Success stories of award booking on Etihad using AA miles (>= 2015) thread. [Note: posts prior to 2015 about this topic (with the exception of a few 2014 end of year posts brought forward for continuity) are archived at ARCHIVE: Success stories of award booking on Etihad using AA miles]
- If you find EY inventory from your continent but not your city of choice, as usual you can include any other AAdvantage award airlines in order to complete the itinerary. E.g. LHR-xAUH-DEL-xAUH-CDG on EY connecting to CDG-LHR on BA.
How to: Use AA Miles to Book Award on Etihad / EY (Archive - 2015 and earlier)
Dec 21, 2015, 5:53 pm
#1156
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Agoura Hills, CA USA
Posts: 2,662
I also just booked a JFK-AUH first class award on the A380 a couple of days out.. So one has to be patient...
Dec 21, 2015, 7:47 pm
#1157
Suspended
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: FIND ME ON TWITTER FOR THE LATEST
Posts: 27,730
Dec 21, 2015, 8:33 pm
#1158
Join Date: Jul 2013
Programs: Mileage Plus, AAdvantage, Executive Club
Posts: 198
Some things I've discovered in the process of trying to book an award from Europe to India/Middle East:
1) It's not enough to follow "a" published routing between the two cities. There has to be a routing for your class of service. In other words, if there's no published EY first class fare for your city pair, no amount of HUACA is going to save you from the fare breaking (and by "no amount" I mean 15+ tries at various times of day with the AA, AU and China desks).
[THE FOLLOWING IS NO LONGER VALID] 2) A good way to find out if there is a published fare if you don't have an ExpertFlyer account is to use the google flights map.
Step 1: input your chosen origin
Step 2: input any place on the planet as destination
Step 3: choose Etihad as the airline
Step 4: select one way, and remove the destination
Step 5: select your class of service, and the date you want to fly
Step 5: click on the map
Any city with an actual price will have a published fare, from the city you selected, in the class you selected, on the date you selected. [THIS BLOCK IS NO LONGER VALID]
1) It's not enough to follow "a" published routing between the two cities. There has to be a routing for your class of service. In other words, if there's no published EY first class fare for your city pair, no amount of HUACA is going to save you from the fare breaking (and by "no amount" I mean 15+ tries at various times of day with the AA, AU and China desks).
[THE FOLLOWING IS NO LONGER VALID] 2) A good way to find out if there is a published fare if you don't have an ExpertFlyer account is to use the google flights map.
Step 1: input your chosen origin
Step 2: input any place on the planet as destination
Step 3: choose Etihad as the airline
Step 4: select one way, and remove the destination
Step 5: select your class of service, and the date you want to fly
Step 5: click on the map
Any city with an actual price will have a published fare, from the city you selected, in the class you selected, on the date you selected. [THIS BLOCK IS NO LONGER VALID]
Last edited by kalendil; Jan 1, 2016 at 6:58 pm
Dec 21, 2015, 8:38 pm
#1159
Suspended
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: FIND ME ON TWITTER FOR THE LATEST
Posts: 27,730
2) A good way to find out if there is a published fare if you don't have an ExpertFlyer account is to use the google flights map.
Step 1: input your chosen origin
Step 2: input any place on the planet as destination
Step 3: choose Etihad as the airline
Step 4: select one way, and remove the destination
Step 5: select your class of service, and the date you want to fly
Step 5: click on the map
Any city with an actual price will have a published fare, from the city you selected, in the class you selected, on the date you selected.
Step 1: input your chosen origin
Step 2: input any place on the planet as destination
Step 3: choose Etihad as the airline
Step 4: select one way, and remove the destination
Step 5: select your class of service, and the date you want to fly
Step 5: click on the map
Any city with an actual price will have a published fare, from the city you selected, in the class you selected, on the date you selected.
Dec 21, 2015, 8:43 pm
#1160
Join Date: Jul 2013
Programs: Mileage Plus, AAdvantage, Executive Club
Posts: 198
I never saw it mentioned in any wiki or posts, thought I'd save some people the frustration of mysterious fare breaks and mention it here.
All told, about 24 man-hours worth of comparing between the map and results on ExpertFlyer. I don't declare it to work perfectly on every carrier (I didn't check it for any other carriers) but I found it pretty reliable for Etihad, specifically, which is why I posted it here, specifically.
All told, about 24 man-hours worth of comparing between the map and results on ExpertFlyer. I don't declare it to work perfectly on every carrier (I didn't check it for any other carriers) but I found it pretty reliable for Etihad, specifically, which is why I posted it here, specifically.
Dec 21, 2015, 8:46 pm
#1161
Suspended
Join Date: Mar 2001
Location: FIND ME ON TWITTER FOR THE LATEST
Posts: 27,730
All told, about 24 man-hours worth of comparing between the map and results on ExpertFlyer. I don't declare it to work perfectly on every carrier (I didn't check it for any other carriers) but I found it pretty reliable for Etihad, specifically, which is why I posted it here, specifically.
Interesting experiment in any case.
Last edited by JonNYC; Dec 21, 2015 at 8:52 pm
Dec 21, 2015, 8:50 pm
#1162
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: New York
Programs: Marriott Gold, AA, United, Delta, Alaska
Posts: 144
Dec 21, 2015, 9:13 pm
#1163
Join Date: Jul 2013
Programs: Mileage Plus, AAdvantage, Executive Club
Posts: 198
You've got the set of city pairs with through fares, and the set of cities with prices on the map. If the sets just so happen, by some quirk in google's code, to be the same, even if only for now, it's something people can use to help narrow the field of legal routes. Otherwise, questions like "what are all the published routes in India/Middle East from x city in Europe in F" are horrifyingly time intensive to answer.
Dec 21, 2015, 9:53 pm
#1164
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Chicago & AUH
Programs: AA PLT Pro, EY Gold, Hilton Gold, Marriott Gold, Hyatt Globalist
Posts: 172
Are people still finding that the US AA desk is not seeing certain EY inventory? Another data point: I just booked 2 F seats JFK-AUH (A380) for 3 days out through the US desk. No problems, no long distance charges. I also had no problems when I switched flights (J seats) a week ago.
Dec 22, 2015, 12:58 am
#1165
Suspended
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 8,460
Have you flown EY J before? I was considering it but a few folks have told me not so great things.
Dec 22, 2015, 5:22 am
#1166
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Chicago & AUH
Programs: AA PLT Pro, EY Gold, Hilton Gold, Marriott Gold, Hyatt Globalist
Posts: 172
We have always had a good experience with Etihad in J and F. We've had exceptional flights and then some that have been so so but as a whole we are happy with them and haven't had any issues come up that would steer us to another carrier.
Dec 22, 2015, 5:34 am
#1167
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: Agoura Hills, CA USA
Posts: 2,662
Yes.. Booked through US based AA agent. Very simple actually...
Dec 22, 2015, 8:55 am
#1169
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Chicago & AUH
Programs: AA PLT Pro, EY Gold, Hilton Gold, Marriott Gold, Hyatt Globalist
Posts: 172