Increased Guest Miles for (F) Award Redemptions

[mrpasqualee]

Anyone else notice that Etihad has increased the cost of F award redemptions?

SYD - AUH - LHR was 198,747 Etihad Guest Miles - but checking now, its increased to 216,610 (~9% increase)

flights from MEL have increased a similar percentage.

It seems this is limited to F redemptions, as J redemptions seem to be roughly the same amount of miles as before

Not a huge increase, but frustrating if you've been watching availability and accruing miles for a redemption!

 

[futaris]

Aren't you better off accruing and redeeming through AAdvantage?

 

[mrpasqualee]

I've got a lot of Flybuys points I was going to transfer to Etihad for a redemption

 

[anat0l]

Aren't you better off accruing and redeeming through AAdvantage?

Depends. AAdvantage are fairly high after the devaluation. It would work fine if you flew a lot of AA earning at about the 1.0x rate, otherwise depending on how much VA + EY flying you do, coupled with Flybuys and MR, might still be slightly easier to go with EY or even VA.

I have to admit, I haven't done the maths.

 

[Mattg]

That's pretty annoying, although I must admit I would never really consider using EY miles for long-haul Etihad flights anyway - they're far too expensive, and there are other programs (e.g. AAdvantage and even Velocity) that allow you to redeem for the same seat/s at a lower cost.