ASI

Recently turned Platinum with Etihad Guest…I wondered what the best or most used feature was amongst other more seasoned members…?

Cheers…ASI

thibaultFR

For me, it's the F lounge, the Economy Choice seats and the possibility to get upgraded automatically.
I was upgraded three times between Abu Dhabi and Sydney/Melbourne but never to Europe.

Wharfe

I agree, the 1st class lounge is fantastic and if you fly regularly out of AUH is a great benefit. Also, if you fly economy often being able to select an economy space seat for free is nice, saves some money and don't need to hope the algorithm allocates you one for free as Gold can do.

Being high up the list for upgrades is good, but there appears to be a secret tier higher than platinum that gets upgrade priority.

The other good bonus is the free Gold nomination, so you can gift that to your partner or someone else.

csdf

TBH the only benefits of Platinum that I've actually noticed are:
a) ability to get free Economy Space seats
b) a nice chat with a flight attendant when flying in Economy, sometimes with an early choice of food. When I fly in Business, flight attendants are blissfully unaware of my status

I've had 5 upgrades on 170 flights with Etihad so basically no noticeable impact on likelihood of being upgraded.

kelix

I feel seen!

Dogmatick

Letting mine lapse after ten years at top level, it's just not worth it for the sky high prices that they look to be continuing through all of next year. What point are the miles if you cannot use them, not a single F seat available ALL of next year LHR to AUH, haven't been upgraded in years, largely because there's no F mostly but also when there is they've downgraded J class to Y rather than bump forwards

That and the fact that all the correspondence goes to their Serbian call centre now who copy and paste the website as their responses, guess what am a ten year Elite member and fourteen years if including Gold before Elite turned up I know what the website says. Couldn't manage the flights this year as had Cancer and that made no difference to them so will just fly J with best pricing. I did however status Match with Qatar and linked that to my Diamond Accor so will retain Platinum with them, so most likely will shift to the Purple airline instead (Avios useful when living in London)

But in answer to your question, I loved the F lounge and they would call ahead when I arrived so that My Manhatten was waiting for me on the bar (Is when you know you fly too much, but I always tipped and no one else really does so perhaps that's an idea)
Spend the few bucks and use the lounge within a lounge in the F lounge, that is serious high end

Other than that they took everything else of any note away, chance of upgrade slim to nil as they've signed contracts with large companies guaranteeing their staff are upgraded when an F is empty etc so loyalty plays no part at all. You do earn loads of extra unusable miles too

thibaultFR

I'd have to agree regarding miles redemptions on EY metal.
None available ex-Australia with the correct pricing for J.

However, many seats are available via Velocity or Aeroplan - which makes me wonder if I should just drop EY Guest and start building status with Velocity.
Currently near impossible to redeem my miles on VA flights with how full flights are and how few redemptions seats are available.

Dogmatick

And every Airline is handing them out like absolute confetti, fully in the knowledge they cannot be used