rascally14

Called EY call center.
1st call, dropped after getting quite far into it....agent's English was poor anyway and comprehension at low level so don't know how we could have exchanged credit card information. Mistakes in understanding in answers I gave.

2nd, 3rd, dropped after almost getting to an agent. (few other calls that didn't work in there, too)

4th call, Put on hold as he said the system is updating. Agent spoke reasonable English. said ANA no longer flies out of YVR, need to use Air Canada. I said let's try SFO, he said he cannot book reward flights more than 3/4 months out. I wanted a flight in July. Call ended.

5th call. Got British agent! Fast and knew how to search. Tried booking American Airlines to HKG, no flight availability from YHZ but she said maybe PHL. I have flexible dates that we played with. In the end, nothing. She said nothing on ANA either. Call was maybe 5 mins.

6th call. There is going to be none. The above took 2 hours and about once/twice/thrice a year, I've been playing these phone shenanigans with EY, even when we had to call to book EY awards. I recall an epic 1hr 45min. call in 2012 for a simple return flight out of AUH. I use SKYPE and was booking for a friend who was in disbelief as most people don't play the air-miles games.

I've had recent success booking with PAL from China to MNL via EY guest miles, however. I booked the tickets six months out with relative ease.

Nonetheless, too much wasted time by all concerned. Been doing the EY phone game since 2010. I'm dumping Etihad guest after 7 years and will only fly 'em only on a good price. Miles are worthless since I am flexible and there is no seat availability after the hassle of getting through. I had a good run with them in 2011-2013 and flew 100k, and had a mitt-full of upgrades, but the program has no chutzpah anymore. Too much disappointment for the effort in booking to maintain loyalty. Seems a major hassle now also to get miles credited from their partners. I feel like every second flight has to be submitted as missing mileage when crediting to Etihad (Hainan/PAL for eg.).

Mauibaby2008

^^ EY Guest is a major PITA. But I always like a challenge.

I am eagerly awaiting the new updated ANA chart...

SuiteFlight

I agree with you Richklhs, especially as the chances of actually getting these redemptions booked were pretty low (I judge you had a one in five chance of getting a call centre agent who knew what they were doing enough to ticket), there seems to be a fair bit of overstatement about hordes getting tickets here.

Your post is no different to the many posts in the Premium Fare Deals thread, and I for one am grateful for your assistance here - despite the fact I've only used it to make one modest SIN-NRT-SIN redemption.

Due to the ridiculous Guest mile rates (the intern's work lol) - where First was only a few points more than Business - this was never going to be open-ended and in all likelihood I suspect the sunset of these rates is more likely that one individual started making multiple redemptions here, rather than a handful of people successfully managing to make one.

Regarding the agent in the UK call centre, the poster who had those details said - despite the offer being there for months - that nobody had reached out to him (when I PM'd him to get the details to look at making an AA domestic redemption that I didn't want to multiple HUCA over).

OpenSky

Perhaps if folks had quiet, this would still be around. Its fine to share things, but these days, especially since company lurkers are on here too, FT is where deals go to die. I'm venting my frustration on the death of this.

Its perfect legal for EY to change the redemption required for this award.

When posting one should assume that such a deal would be gone in due course. If you are interested in "sharing" there are private means of sharing this via other forums which EY company representatives are not a part of.

SuiteFlight

It's not just the partner flights, even Etihad flights and Etihad code (EY) marketed flights have a terrible tendency to fail automatic crediting. I've had to chase a EY flight credit almost every second booking - that they've recently called in IBM to sort out the mess that is their IT systems is a mark of the extent of the trouble. You can eventually get the missing credit if you are willing to chase it hard enough, but in almost all cases, triple and quadruple mile bonuses that that segment should have received won't be credited then.

The last couple of months I just gave up doing all this run-around, and just credited the lost segments to VA instead (who took no more than two days to process).

Mauibaby2008

I am genuinely curious where these private means of sharing these deals exist. I most definitely shared the existence of this little, sale, with a few people by PM, but by no means of a private forum.

I think realistically this didn't go "mistake fare status" because MOST people do not collect EY miles, and how difficult it really was to actually redeem for it in the first place.

Just be happy you got to take advantage in the first place

SuiteFlight

It's very doubtful that information about the ANA chart alone lead to it's removal - much more likely that the senior employee who has to authorise payment to partner airlines for Etihad Guest redemption awards on their tin got alerted by the fact that booking were popping up. Whether the details were private or public, once Etihad started paying ANA for these redemptions, they were going to notice they were paying more than the internal value of the points redeemed. It may well be that even just one or two redemptions would have the same effect as twenty - given the batched nature (time period) of these payments (although I'm leaning that one account with multiple ANA redemptions triggered an internal security review - because greediness is often everyone's downfall).

The company reps on this forum - Etihad Help - are low level employees and (as anyone who seen their posts can say...) they aren't that clued in (and given the hierarchy distance Etihad has, information flow is feeble). God knows things would be very different at Etihad if you had people with authority over at EY reviewing FT threads

SuiteFlight

Aye, first in, best dressed with this sort of stuff. No matter what you do, it'll never be open-ended.

rascally14

I meant to add that I had my sights set on a trans-Pacific with EY guest on ANA metal. Fail, after fail, after fail is what I'm left with. It takes hours upon hours to figure out these things. I feel like I've lost my focus by chasing something that is not attainable that now that nothing can book into AA or ANA. What an awfully run program. I need to be hitting the exercise room rather than trying to have a few nice flights that seem to vanish into pixey dust as they are not available as presented. Shoddy, shoddy. If one sees a challenge in this, good luck to ya. As time goes on, UA (or others) seems authentic with their clear regs and rules. UA is so good at responding, updating my account and trying to help. EY is difficult to earn the mileage for rewards that are not attainable once the reward goal post isreached anyway!

Muckael

Called the German hotline and ended up in Manchester with Mr. David who spoke German. I asked for the price of DUS-NRT. He wasn't able to answer, but told me he would call me back. After 10 minutes he told me it would cost 33500 Y, 60000 C, 120000 F. The same rates would apply for other cities in Europe such as LHR, CDG.

Mauibaby2008

Maybe it is now distance based. That would be sad

stephem

If LAX-NRT, SFO-NRT and SEA-NRT are 120k RT in business, then that is still a decent deal. I mean, to put it in perspective, that's slightly less than the amount I paid for a pair of RT F awards under the old "intern" generated chart, but it's also very much in the reasonable range when you look at other FF programs today-- especially if you are lucky enough to have the 3x/4x promo work out on some cheaper fares. You could actually end up with a decent cents/mile cost under these new award rates.
Caveats: you have to chase 3x/4x promo credit and may not get it, you will have to go thru multiple EY agents to get the award booked, etc.

SuiteFlight

Yes, very true.

I agree stephem - let's not get all doom and gloom just because the redemptions rates are no longer insanely cheap. Also long as they are still decent (i.e. Not ridiculously expensive like say AUH-LHR redemptions) then it can still be a sweet spot in the Etihad Guest redemption awards (if you are prepared to HUCA multiple times to get it booked).

Richklhs

Makes me very happy 'intern' award charts has caught on. oh Etihad, how I love and hate thee

hansyuwiwb

I think NH awards are now completely blocked. United.com shows available X and I while EY sees none. HUCA multiple times no luck. Based on how long it took the agents to look it up and the sequence of questions they asked me, I think the agents I spoke to all knew what they are doing.