Act Fast: Wide Open Award Availability for Etihad's First Apartment
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Finding award availability to fly Etihad's First Apartment on the carrier's one US route with the product — New York (JFK) to Abu Dhabi (AUH) — is often difficult to come by. After all, it's among the most luxurious products in the sky, behind the carrier's own Residence experience, Emirates' new first-class suites and Singapore Airlines' new A380 suites — and starting October 1, there'll be only one A380 operating on the route instead of two per day.
However, there's one popular route where Etihad isn't as strict about releasing award availability and will soon have a lot more more award seats available. When Etihad takes one of its A380s off the New York route, it will move it to its Paris (CDG) to Abu Dhabi (AUH) route and we're seeing practically wide open award availability starting October 1. And it's not just one or two award seats available a day — most days in the fall have at least five saver first class award seats on at least one of the two non-stop flights
You can find this space by searching on Etihad's "Flights with miles" webpage for a flight from Paris (CDG) to Abu Dhabi (AUH) — and vice versa. Any days that show Guest First seats available at 85,156 Etihad miles are A380 First Apartment seats at the lowest award level. If you see awards available at this level, you should be able to book the flight using your American AAdvantage miles as well — for just 62,500 miles each way.
And it doesn't end there. There are also a ton of dates with at least two awards seats available on flights between Sydney (SYD) and Abu Dhabi (AUH). Any days that show Guest First seats available at 137,908 Etihad miles are at the lowest award level. Again, you'd come out ahead by booking this award through American AAdvantage for 100,000 miles each way.
You will need to call an AA call center to book Etihad awards using American AAdvantage miles. Based on our experiences, US-based AAdvantage agents could see all the availability shown on Etihad.com for flights that don't touch the US. If they have issues accessing the award space, you may have better luck by calling AA's Australia reservations line (+61 02-9101-1948) in order to book.
If you're short on American AAdvantage miles, you can earn 50,000 bonus miles if you sign up for the Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select World Elite Mastercard, and spend $2,500 in the first three months of account opening, or earn 70,000 miles after signing up for the CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Mastercard® and spending $4,000 on purchases in the first four months of account opening. American is also currently offering best-ever buy miles promotion.
The information for the Citi AAdvantage Platinum card and CitiBusiness AAdvantage Platinum card has been collected independently by The Points Guy. The card details on this page have not been reviewed or provided by the card issuer.
Alternatively, you may also be able to book this space using miles from some of Etihad's little-known partners like ANA and Korean Airlines. For instance, round-trip first class awards between Paris and Abu Dhabi can be booked for 120,000 Korean SkyPass miles (which can easily be transferred from Chase at a 1:1 ratio).
TPG himself had the chance to try out the first-class apartment and said he'd fly it again for the excellent food and service, shower, a bed ideal for sleeping and a great lounge.
H/T: View From The Wing