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-   -   Book awards on EY partner airlines (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/etihad-airways-etihad-guest/1681303-book-awards-ey-partner-airlines.html)

carsnoceans Oct 5, 2015 11:53 pm

I am very glad to have come across this thread. This establishes any loyalty with EY for earning miles would be ridiculous idea.

EY help keeps responding every few posts but I haven't seen any reports of successful partner redemptions. Essentially, EtihadHelp's presence is moot since they cannot get any results.

sweetrose Oct 6, 2015 6:28 pm

Success booking on All Nippon
 
Heard about fantastic redemptions for Etihad guest miles (first class, ~90K r/t US-Japan) on blogs and attempted to help my parents use their nearly 300K banked to book a trip to Japan. I tried all the usual avenues: called customer service -- they were unhelpful. Tweeted about it -- got minimal traction. Emailed the CEO (just googled "Etihad CEO" to find an address)-- got a response which seemed promising asking for the details of the flight I was looking to book. Following some tips I found online, I had read to use United's Mileage Plus award lookup on their website to look for *likely* rewards. I forwarded the details of the flight as requested. Many followups later, I was told that the request was denied due to lack of availability and the matter was closed. I had planned to email again, but got lost in the shuffle (and my fatigue fighting the powers that be, lol ;))

Imagine my surprise when my father received a phone call the other day (maybe 3-4 weeks later!) saying that his business class award tickets were confirmed, with tickets issued and reading confirmed in the emails we received. Extremely surprising! - but as far as I can tell, we will be traveling to Japan in business class for 255K r/t (+~800 "fees") for 3 tickets. Just thought I'd share a success story. The person that called my father to notify him of the confirmed tickets told him that the redemption needed to be approved by higher management, so perhaps that is part of the reason it is relatively harder to make this booking. Anyway, just wanted to share a success story. Well, I guess we'll see if something happens to the ticket, but the pdf I have confirms the flight and says seats need to be assigned at check in. So it seems legit. Good luck!

tangey Oct 7, 2015 4:54 am

well now we know how to get redemption flights sorted out, email the CEO !

sweetrose Oct 7, 2015 5:09 am

I don't kid myself that the CEO had anything to do with this -- but I have seen in the past with various things customer service issues where front line service isn't getting me traction (except for Comcast, US users!), there is often a executive customer service team linked with the CEO's office. They tend to be empowered to make other things happen than your typical first-line customer service reps. (Certainly with Etihad; I kept sending emails to their front line people and getting these tone-deaf "Thanks for flying Etihad, log in to your account for servicing" or some nonsense like that.) It was a quick email to write, a shot in the dark -- and it worked! I just posted because when I googled away looking for advice/tips on how to do this, there were many stories of being unsuccessful because their customer service, while polite, pretty much has their hands tied-- since I got lucky I thought others may be able to try this way too. Again ... good luck!

Richklhs Oct 9, 2015 6:24 pm

what flights did you end up on, assuming ANA? Which email address to the CEO did you use?

sweetrose Oct 20, 2015 6:44 pm

Sorry for the late reply -- I wasn't checking the thread. Flights are NH 11 and NH 12 (return) from ORD-NRT in late May. I picked the dates out of thin air-- just thinking of when the weather might be nice over there! I believe that the request needed to be approved by a higher-ranking person over at Etihad (as opposed to something like Star Alliance/United where its super easy to book online), so it took some time.

As for the email, it is easy to google (google: etihad ceo email address) -- I can give the exact email over PM (I think it's forbidden to post on the forum?) if you'd like. Good luck!!!

dustbuster Oct 31, 2015 3:18 am

Unable to find any awards on ANA/Asiana
 
I just spent a very frustrating couple hours trying to find awards on ANA & Asiana. Every city pair I checked and every date I checked, there was no availability - and I must have checked hundreds of flights with Etihad's call center agents. However, when I checked partner availability via united.com and other sites, award availability was wide open! I wonder if there's something wrong with Etihad's partner inventory system; I had found great availability when I called earlier.

Mauibaby2008 Oct 31, 2015 7:08 am


Originally Posted by dustbuster (Post 25641594)
I just spent a very frustrating couple hours trying to find awards on ANA & Asiana. Every city pair I checked and every date I checked, there was no availability - and I must have checked hundreds of flights with Etihad's call center agents. However, when I checked partner availability via united.com and other sites, award availability was wide open! I wonder if there's something wrong with Etihad's partner inventory system; I had found great availability when I called earlier.

I've booked several ANA awards with a call center agent name Simon, I believe he is British. I usually speak to him around 9-10pm EST.

If you get a woman, hang up. In my experience they have no clue. Also advise them, for ANA bookings, they must manually request the seat the ANA themselves which is a different process than what they normally do.

Also, maybe dumb question, but all your hundreds of flights you checked, they are actually city pairs flown by ANA? SFO-NRT HND-LAX ORD-NRT ... Don't try to book connections, probably won't happen

darkice81 Oct 31, 2015 9:04 am


Originally Posted by Mauibaby2008 (Post 25642064)
I've booked several ANA awards with a call center agent name Simon, I believe he is British. I usually speak to him around 9-10pm EST.

If you get a woman, hang up. In my experience they have no clue. Also advise them, for ANA bookings, they must manually request the seat the ANA themselves which is a different process than what they normally do.

Also, maybe dumb question, but all your hundreds of flights you checked, they are actually city pairs flown by ANA? SFO-NRT HND-LAX ORD-NRT ... Don't try to book connections, probably won't happen

Which Etihad call center do you call to reach this Simon character? US? Manchester?

Mauibaby2008 Oct 31, 2015 9:31 am


Originally Posted by darkice81 (Post 25642406)
Quote:





Originally Posted by Mauibaby2008


I've booked several ANA awards with a call center agent name Simon, I believe he is British. I usually speak to him around 9-10pm EST.

If you get a woman, hang up. In my experience they have no clue. Also advise them, for ANA bookings, they must manually request the seat the ANA themselves which is a different process than what they normally do.

Also, maybe dumb question, but all your hundreds of flights you checked, they are actually city pairs flown by ANA? SFO-NRT HND-LAX ORD-NRT ... Don't try to book connections, probably won't happen




Which Etihad call center do you call to reach this Simon character? US? Manchester?

If I had to guess it would be Manchester. Of the last two times I called Etihad Guest he answered and even recognized me from the previous call a week prior. Nice, competent guy

dustbuster Oct 31, 2015 10:20 am


Originally Posted by Mauibaby2008 (Post 25642064)
Also, maybe dumb question, but all your hundreds of flights you checked, they are actually city pairs flown by ANA? SFO-NRT HND-LAX ORD-NRT ... Don't try to book connections, probably won't happen

Good tips, thanks. I did check that the flights were not only scheduled, but even bookable as partner awards on united.com. I also saw award availability listed on ExpertFlyer.

Do you know whether they also have to manually request seats from Asiana?

dustbuster Oct 31, 2015 12:17 pm


Originally Posted by dustbuster (Post 25642651)
Good tips, thanks. I did check that the flights were not only scheduled, but even bookable as partner awards on united.com. I also saw award availability listed on ExpertFlyer.

Do you know whether they also have to manually request seats from Asiana?

I finally found success with the 11th (seriously) agent I called. She was from the Manchester call center, and I reached her through the US customer service number (+1 888 838 4423, phone tree for award booking: 1-1-2-1). Initially, she also told me that she could not find availability on any date. However, she seemed a bit more determined than the other agents, and at least knew what a partner award was, so I told her that it might be necessary to manually request seats, per Mauibaby2008. She told me she would look into it and put me on a very long hold while she spoke to her supervisor. She came back and was able to find availability (I asked the agent what she had to do differently, and she told me that she had to "search for the specific flight & ask for the booking reference in the system")! Even better, she was able to ticket for dates that are blacked out for United (see "Peak Season" on Asiana Club)!

The result: a roundtrip ticket ICN-CGQ in J/I for 10,000 miles + 44300 KRW in taxes/fees. I guess the moral of the story is: hang up, call again. And again. And again.

Mauibaby2008 Oct 31, 2015 1:06 pm


Originally Posted by dustbuster (Post 25643072)
Quote:





Originally Posted by dustbuster


Good tips, thanks. I did check that the flights were not only scheduled, but even bookable as partner awards on united.com. I also saw award availability listed on ExpertFlyer.

Do you know whether they also have to manually request seats from Asiana?




I finally found success with the 11th (seriously) agent I called. She was from the Manchester call center, and I reached her through the US customer service number (+1 888 838 4423, phone tree for award booking: 1-1-2-1). Initially, she also told me that she could not find availability on any date. However, she seemed a bit more determined than the other agents, and at least knew what a partner award was, so I told her that it might be necessary to manually request seats, per Mauibaby2008. She told me she would look into it and put me on a very long hold while she spoke to her supervisor. She came back and was able to find availability (I asked the agent what she had to do differently, and she told me that she had to "search for the specific flight & ask for the booking reference in the system")! Even better, she was able to ticket for dates that are blacked out for United (see "Peak Season" on Asiana Club)!

The result: a roundtrip ticket ICN-CGQ in J/I for 10,000 miles + 44300 KRW in taxes/fees. I guess the moral of the story is: hang up, call again. And again. And again.

Congrats !!! It's a lot of leg work but feels great when it finally gets booked;)

nihit157 Nov 2, 2015 12:58 am

Redeeming Etihad miles on partner airlines
 
Hi... I am new to the forum so please pardon me if its too obvious...

But I have researched quite a bit and I couldnt find the mileage calcualtor or the options to redeem flights using Eithad Guest Miles.

To be specific I want to use Etihad Guest Miles for AA flights , but first I wanna see the mileage chart and accumulate miles accordingly but after a lot of oniine research I couldnt find any . Eithad site only shows redemption for etihad flights.

please help.

mlqsko Nov 2, 2015 1:09 am

Welcome, this way please: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/etiha...-airlines.html


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