Redeeming Etihad Guest miles on Air Canada Express?

[Mattg]

I need to book a flight from YUL to IAD so had a look at the options and noticed that you can redeem Etihad miles for Air Canada flights. This would be great value because Air Canada flights under 500 miles in length only cost 5,000 Etihad Guest miles. YUL-IAD is 489 miles.

https://www.etihadguest.com/en/spend-miles/flying/air-canada.html

So I called Etihad, and they told me that it was not possible to book the flight I wanted because it was showing in their system as a codeshare flight, rather than an Air Canada flight. It's operated by "Air Canada Express - Jazz".

Does this seem right? Anyone come across this before?

I recall having a similar issue previously with Etihad telling me I couldn't book a VA flight using miles because it was operated by "VA SE Asia" or "Virgin Australia Intl" etc. and their system showed it as being a codeshare flight.

 

[bam71]

I’d HUACA

 

[Mattg]

I ended up just using Velocity points (it was 10,000 points instead of 5,000 miles with Etihad, but whatever).

The guy could see the flight in his system and there was availability, but he said the system wouldn't let him book the seat. He did try, but it was being flagged as a codeshare flight by Etihad.

If anyone else has success with this I'd be interested to know, though.