Jan 14, 2016, 5:43 am
Last edit by: medellinfein
Booking Award Seats on EY / Etihad Airways Using AA / AAdvantage Miles
Also see: Earning AA Miles EQM / EQD / EQS on EY / Etihad (master thread)
This thread is about how to book Etihad / EY award seats using AA AAdvantage miles, and sharing success stories. This wiki is new, so anyone with 90/90 who wishes to add helpful information is, of course, urged to do so.
NOTE:AA has removed most EY and QR award access from aa.com due to a glitch booking these:
Please see the archived threads for previous experiences:
Also see: Earning AA Miles EQM / EQD / EQS on EY / Etihad (master thread)
This thread is about how to book Etihad / EY award seats using AA AAdvantage miles, and sharing success stories. This wiki is new, so anyone with 90/90 who wishes to add helpful information is, of course, urged to do so.
NOTE:AA has removed most EY and QR award access from aa.com due to a glitch booking these:
From One Mile at a Time (link)
Bottom Line
For the time being you’ll have to call American if you want to ticket AAdvantage awards on Etihad & Qatar that aren’t for travel to & from the US or Canada. It makes sense that American took these awards “offline,” and now it also makes sense why so many passengers have been having issues with checked bags on awards.
Bottom Line
For the time being you’ll have to call American if you want to ticket AAdvantage awards on Etihad & Qatar that aren’t for travel to & from the US or Canada. It makes sense that American took these awards “offline,” and now it also makes sense why so many passengers have been having issues with checked bags on awards.
- You can now search or book awards for travel on EY (Etihad) on www.aa.com.
- You can search award availability on EY's website. Look only for seats on flights operated by Etihad Airways that are labeled as "GuestSeats". You can also search on ExpertFlyer
- Note: You may see more availability if you search on EY's website using itineraries that do not originate in the US. In other words, to potentially see more availability on a USA-XYZ segment, search for XYZ-USA-XYZ. Expertflyer does not report this additional availability (if any), and US-based agents probably will not be able to see or book it (but see further below for Fiji).
- To expand on this point a bit, it seems that even if you only want to fly USA-AUH (or to other foreign destinations, since they route through AUH), due to an EY website quirk you need to search AUH-USA-AUH in order to find available USA-AUH routes.
- You no longer 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:
- It is often or even typically the case that for first and business class awards US agents cannot see the award space that you see on Etihad's site. Your best bet, then, is to call AA Australia (+61 2-9101-1948 ) then press 3 - or the New Zealand number (+64 09-308-4014) (actually South African contractor Mindpearl in Fiji) or Singapore (+65 6349-8444) as an alternative - what you need is the specific call center which is actually in Suva, Fiji (I believe it's our old South African agency friend Mindpearl) or, according to recent reports, in Trinidad (since there have been some reports that the Fiji center has closed). You can put the EY segments on hold so you can flesh out the award afterward and/or pay the fees in USD through the US call center, or simply buy it through non-US call center if you think you won't be making subsequent routing changes (such as adding AA connecting flights within the USA) that would incur fees. (NOTE: calls may get picked up by the local Brisbane office, or rerouted to Trinidad or the USA. As noted, there are reports that the Fiji call center has closed, but people have still been able to book some of the time, particularly if they reach the Trinidad center since that seems to be the call center that yields the greatest success in late 2017 and 2018 - with the big caveat that there are at least as many failures as successes in calling there, including repeatedly. To increase the chances of success, you may have to call several times, since for some reason a given customer service representative at a given time won't see availability even if it shows at the EY site, but another CSR at the same center may be able to do so even a few minutes later. It's conceivable that this difference is due to some CSRs knowing how to search for award availability better than others do, but that's simply a matter of speculation at this point.)
- Note: EY award holds only last 72 hours...irrespective of what AA reservation hold email states
- Booking connections via AUH / Abu Dabhi using one award is now allowed.
- Get both AA and EY reservation codes/numbers: Upon booking with AA, make sure to get the EY reservation number as well as that of AA from the AA CSR, as without the EY number it will be difficult or impossible to deal with EY, such as for checking or managing your reservation online. And of course, if there is another airline involved in the reservation as well (such as BA), get its reservation number.
- A handy EY route map is here: http://flights.etihad.com/routemap.
- The applicable AAdvantage miles award chart is the oneworld and partner airlines award chart.
- Award routing rules are in the wikipost of this thread.
- 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.
- WARNING: While this trick is great for new bookings (especially if you have patience to get lucky for call to be routed to Fiji office), modifying booking on partner airlines is always risky especially when an overseas center is involved, Your original seats are immediately released and while new reservation is supposedly confirmed, it may actually not the case until ticket desk actually issues ticket after approval of the partner liaison. Weekend/Holidays/Time-Difference can delay issuance of ticket and if something goes wrong, there is always risk of being SOL. (Mistakes by agents are rare but not unheard of).
- SEAT ASSIGNMENTS: You cannot choose seats until after ticketing. Even then, the regular web site will not allow seat assignments to be made for AAdvantage award bookings. The mobile site (which can be reached with either a mobile or a desktop browser) may work in some cases. Calling EY to make seat assignments always works, as long as you can give them the EY record locator, and as long as AA has issued the ticket (which can take a few days, you will get e-mail). Call 1-877-690-0767, press 1 for English, then 2 for First/Business, then 2 for existing bookings, then they will tell you the call is ending - but it's not: they have added "press 1 to speak to an agent", so finally, press 1 to continue the call. After this, you should have someone on the line quickly to help you. They will ask you a series of questions such as "What class are you traveling in?" and "Where are you going?" Alternatively, you can choose your seats on the Etihad website and app by using the EY record locator to find your award itinerary.
- Availability: EY award availability using AA miles can be fairly good, including in business and first class - IF you get past the big, aforementioned challenge of actually booking award seats that the EY site shows as available but that AA agents have trouble finding. But it ebbs and flows quite a bit in at least two respects (in addition to the general rule that the further in advance you seek availability, the better, as well as reports that availability is easier to find from one to three weeks before a flight): 1) availability showing at the EY site and 2) even if availability shows at the EY site, the ability of non-US call centers (especially the "least bad" ones for finding availability, which might have been Fiji and might now be Trinidad) to find that availability. So if the EY site is not showing availability for a given day or week, and if you have flexibility, check other dates. And if availability seems to be particularly constrained across many dates, particularly if you are searching many months in advance, check again periodically to see if this has changed (or arrange an alert via ExpertFlyer, if it provides such a service for EY flights).
- "Baby-sit" your tickets: Though this advice could apply to many award bookings, EY's systems can be glitchy and the airline apparently is going through some financial challenges. So it makes sense to check online or via phone occasionally with EY to make sure everything remains in order, particularly if there have been even minor changes in things like your flight times. And if there seem to be problems, including with checking in online or other procedures, the EY forum here at FT can be a source of useful advice about whether or not those problems are worth worrying about.
- Itinerary: You can use https://www.virtuallythere.com/new/login.html to enter your EY record locator and last name to 1)display your complete itinerary 2)save a pdf 3)add to outlook/ical 4)view ticket # and different times the ticket has been reissued
- AA lounge access: If you book a premium cabin itinerary on EY with domestic connections on AA, you will not be able to access the Admiral's Club during your domestic layovers because EY is not a member of OW.
Please see the archived threads for previous experiences:
- How to: Use AA Miles to Book Award on Etihad / EY (Archive - 2015 and earlier)
- Success stories booking awards on Etihad using AA miles (Archive - 2015 and earlier)
- Booking AA Award travel on Etihad / EY - [2015-17 ARCHIVE]
Booking AA Award travel on Etihad / EY (master thread July 2017 onwards)
Aug 14, 2018, 4:51 pm
#586
Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: Canada
Posts: 248
Sorry that was a typo. It should be AUH. In the wiki it did have a "warning" with regards to making flight changes to these award redemption's so I wanted to ask for my particular scenario.
Aug 19, 2018, 2:19 pm
#588
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 4
Thanks a lot for the information here; want to contribute one positive data point
trying to book JFK to AUH on Oct for 3 person, one way search in Etihad website shows nothing; only shows availability when searching AUH-JFK-AUH
called US number - nothing
called AU number - nothing
called SIN number ~4pm EST on Sunday - Agent was super competent, knows before i even ask, get availability literately within 30 sec, finished the whole thing within 5 min
He quoted SIG dollar, but from he sounds more like from South America
all calls happened at the same day
honestly this looks to me more like a training issue than call center issue
trying to book JFK to AUH on Oct for 3 person, one way search in Etihad website shows nothing; only shows availability when searching AUH-JFK-AUH
called US number - nothing
called AU number - nothing
called SIN number ~4pm EST on Sunday - Agent was super competent, knows before i even ask, get availability literately within 30 sec, finished the whole thing within 5 min
He quoted SIG dollar, but from he sounds more like from South America
all calls happened at the same day
honestly this looks to me more like a training issue than call center issue
Aug 21, 2018, 3:22 pm
#589
Join Date: Jun 2015
Posts: 84
Is it possible to add an Cathay Pacific award onto the end of on Etihad award? I'm flying from MLE-AUH-JFK in February, and would like to add JFK-YVR. This would increase the award 5,000 miles and I would be charged a $200 change fee. Although I don't know if AA will allow this due to the award originally being on Etihad...
Aug 22, 2018, 1:22 pm
#592
Join Date: Apr 2017
Posts: 3
Thanks a lot for the information here; want to contribute one positive data point
trying to book JFK to AUH on Oct for 3 person, one way search in Etihad website shows nothing; only shows availability when searching AUH-JFK-AUH
called US number - nothing
called AU number - nothing
called SIN number ~4pm EST on Sunday - Agent was super competent, knows before i even ask, get availability literately within 30 sec, finished the whole thing within 5 min
He quoted SIG dollar, but from he sounds more like from South America
all calls happened at the same day
honestly this looks to me more like a training issue than call center issue
trying to book JFK to AUH on Oct for 3 person, one way search in Etihad website shows nothing; only shows availability when searching AUH-JFK-AUH
called US number - nothing
called AU number - nothing
called SIN number ~4pm EST on Sunday - Agent was super competent, knows before i even ask, get availability literately within 30 sec, finished the whole thing within 5 min
He quoted SIG dollar, but from he sounds more like from South America
all calls happened at the same day
honestly this looks to me more like a training issue than call center issue
JFK - AUH on EY 100 in May 2019
No one way availability on EY, no availability on EF
US, AU, NZ all showed no availability
Singapore found availability immediately and put on hold.
Last edited by nethel; Aug 22, 2018 at 1:22 pm Reason: missing quote
Aug 22, 2018, 2:51 pm
#593
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: LAX
Programs: UA Silver, AA, WN, DL
Posts: 4,091
MLE-AUH-JFK-xxx (US airport)
as a single award.
I understood it as:
MLE-AUH has to be a separate award
AUH-JFK-xxx has to be another
I hope I am wrong; as I would love to have it all be under one booking vs 2 different awards (and change fees).
Aug 22, 2018, 5:33 pm
#594
Join Date: May 2013
Posts: 190
Similar question: I was under the impression it was not possible to book:
MLE-AUH-JFK-xxx (US airport)
as a single award.
I understood it as:
MLE-AUH has to be a separate award
AUH-JFK-xxx has to be another
I hope I am wrong; as I would love to have it all be under one booking vs 2 different awards (and change fees).
MLE-AUH-JFK-xxx (US airport)
as a single award.
I understood it as:
MLE-AUH has to be a separate award
AUH-JFK-xxx has to be another
I hope I am wrong; as I would love to have it all be under one booking vs 2 different awards (and change fees).
Aug 22, 2018, 6:05 pm
#596
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: LAX
Programs: UA Silver, AA, WN, DL
Posts: 4,091
That's encouraging news... was that 115K AA miles for MLE-AUH-LAX-SFO (presuming first class)? I was not able to put together an award booking using Etihad's website for MLE-AUH-JFK. It kept saying no flights available but segment by segment was. I presumed that using AA miles would require that the itinerary be bookable on EY to qualify for AA award booking.
Short checking the bag may or may not be permissible; depends on the operating carrier IIRC. If you are going to be dropping your remaining segment that is immediately after getting into US, then you'll need to claim your luggage anyways. Though if it is coming from AUH, with preclearance there, I wonder if they do it differently.
IIRC, you can change routing without changing destination with no change fee. If you remove a segment and that changes your destination, I believe that constitutes a change.
IIRC, you can change routing without changing destination with no change fee. If you remove a segment and that changes your destination, I believe that constitutes a change.
Last edited by luv2ctheworld; Aug 22, 2018 at 6:33 pm
Aug 22, 2018, 6:35 pm
#597
Join Date: May 2013
Posts: 190
That's encouraging news... was that 115K AA miles for MLE-AUH-LAX-SFO (presuming first class)? I was not able to put together an award booking using Etihad's website for MLE-AUH-JFK. It kept saying no flights available but segment by segment was. I presumed that using AA miles would require that the itinerary be bookable on EY to qualify for AA award booking.
Short checking the bag may or may not be permissible; depends on the operating carrier IIRC. If you are going to be dropping your remaining segment that is immediately after getting into US, then you'll need to claim your luggage anyways. Though if it is coming from AUH, with preclearance there, I wonder if they do it differently.
Short checking the bag may or may not be permissible; depends on the operating carrier IIRC. If you are going to be dropping your remaining segment that is immediately after getting into US, then you'll need to claim your luggage anyways. Though if it is coming from AUH, with preclearance there, I wonder if they do it differently.
I currently have a reservation for JFK-AUH-MLE, and an additional reservation for just AUH-MLE a few days later. I'm still debating whether I want to stay a few days in AUH before I go to the maldives or not. But if I chose to stay a few days I would rather not pay a change fee ($300 for 2 tickets) for dropping the flight. It's a 13 hr layover so I'm hoping I can tell them I need my luggage because I'm going to a hotel for the night.
Edit:
Short checking baggage
Looks like you can short check bags to AUH for overnight connections. So I guess I should be OK. I assume there's no consequences of missing a F class flight on etihad? Should I just not show up or once I land and get my bags call them and tell them I wont be able to make it to the next days flight?
Last edited by captainamerica; Aug 22, 2018 at 6:50 pm
Aug 23, 2018, 9:01 am
#598
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: LAX
Programs: UA Silver, AA, WN, DL
Posts: 4,091
For those who called the international call centers, was there a particular US time zone that the call was made (i.e. is there an "A-team" that usually appears more capable (shift wise) than other time frame)?
TIA
TIA
Aug 23, 2018, 9:36 am
#599
Join Date: Apr 2014
Programs: Hilton - Diamond, IHG - Spire Amb
Posts: 901
Similar question: I was under the impression it was not possible to book:
MLE-AUH-JFK-xxx (US airport)
as a single award.
I understood it as:
MLE-AUH has to be a separate award
AUH-JFK-xxx has to be another
I hope I am wrong; as I would love to have it all be under one booking vs 2 different awards (and change fees).
MLE-AUH-JFK-xxx (US airport)
as a single award.
I understood it as:
MLE-AUH has to be a separate award
AUH-JFK-xxx has to be another
I hope I am wrong; as I would love to have it all be under one booking vs 2 different awards (and change fees).
Aug 23, 2018, 6:12 pm
#600
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Live: IWI; Work: DCA/Everywhere; Play: LAS/SJU/MLE
Programs: AA EXP, DL PM, Hyatt Glob, Marriott Ambassador/LTP, Nat'l Exec Elite, LEYE Gold
Posts: 6,675