Great Eithad first class reward availability from London and other cities

Etihad has opened up a lot of reward space on its first class route, and it’s a good opportunity if you are in for the experience.

First of all you could perform your searches on Etihad’s website which will give you a 7-day calendar view at a time. In the following example, the 88,024 miles price on March 18th indicates standard award availability, which doesn’t exist on other days.

Once you find your desired flight you could book using your Etihad Guest miles, which can be converted from Amex membership rewards points. You’d be overpaying (by a large margin) though, and the best way to redeem an Etihad ticket is to use Aeroplan instead.

A one-way ticket from Abu Dhabi to London in first class costs only 65,000 points and 84 CAD. Charges will be higher for the other way around because of UK’s APD. Aeroplan doesn’t have a promotion on point purchase right now, but you can still get their points by transferring from:

• Amex membership rewards in US / Canada, which is instant
• Marriott Bonvoy, but it might take quite a few days

Etihad flies to London and Geneva in Europe, as well as Washing DC in the States.

This is how Etihad’s first class on Boeing 787 looks like:

Which is, unfortunately, not comparable to Emirates’ first class suite that I was in a few days ago.

Hopefully their A380 fleet will return soon, and I can’t wait to sit in the first apartment!