Etihad Guest’s New 2023 Award Charts

Etihad Boeing 787
Etihad’s frequent flyer program has overhauled its award charts. Photo: Jeffry Surianto.

Etihad’s frequent flyer program has overhauled its award charts. We now know what the new award charts look like, and there’s both good and bad news.

While some award flights on partner airlines have increased in cost by as much as 124%, other redemption costs have actually decreased by up to 54%.

These changes to Etihad’s award charts were initially foreshadowed last month, but Etihad Guest did not previously reveal what the new award charts would look like.

The new Etihad Guest award charts come into effect from 9 March 2023. Meanwhile, Etihad is currently in the process of completing a huge system upgrade and won’t be able to take any new bookings until this is completed on around 10 March.

Many “sweet spots” are now dead

Fortunately, the changes aren’t quite as bad as they could have been. And with a single award chart that now applies to redemptions on all partner airlines, the Etihad Guest program certainly has become a lot simpler.

It will also soon be possible to redeem Etihad Guest miles for Virgin Australia and American Airlines flights on Etihad’s website, which is a welcome improvement. This previously required a phone call. Etihad Guest members will still need to call, though, to redeem miles on other partner airlines.

The bad news is that most of the excellent “sweet spots” in Etihad Guest’s old award charts have been eliminated with this change. For example, mid-length Virgin Australia domestic flights like Sydney-Cairns used to be excellent value at just 6,900 Etihad Guest miles in Economy, or 13,800 miles for Business Class. This flight now costs 15,000 miles for Economy or 30,000 miles for Business.

Most redemptions on Air Serbia, American Airlines, Oman Air, Royal Air Maroc and Brussels Airlines also now require significantly more Etihad Guest miles.

The new Etihad Airways award chart

Previously, Etihad didn’t really have fixed-price award zones for GuestSeat redemptions on the airline’s own flights. Now, as per the Etihad Guest website, awards will be priced according to the below award chart:

Etihad Guest award chart for GuestSeat redemptions on Etihad flights, as of March 2023
Etihad Guest award chart for GuestSeat redemptions on Etihad flights, as of March 2023.

It is not exactly clear what Etihad Guest means by “a premium redemption fare will be applied based on demand and availability”.

Etihad will continue to make all seats on its own flights available to book as OpenSeat awards. These are (sometimes much) more expensive than GuestSeat awards, but are much more widely available.

The new Etihad Guest award chart for partner airline redemptions

Rather than a unique award chart for every individual partner airline, Etihad Guest now just has a single award chart that covers all partners. This is basically the same as the previous award chart that applied to redemptions on EL AL, one of Etihad’s newest partner airlines.

Here’s the new chart:

Etihad Guest award chart for partner airline redemptions, as of March 2023
Etihad Guest’s new award chart for partner airline redemptions, as of March 2023.

You can use Great Circle Mapper to calculate the distance of any route.

Some examples of old vs new Etihad Guest award pricing

While some award flights have actually become cheaper, Etihad has unfortunately adjusted many redemptions in an “upwards” direction…

Here are some examples of Etihad Guest redemption costs (excluding taxes & charges) before and after the March 2023 award chart changes:

AirlineRouteCabin ClassPrevious Miles RequiredNew Miles Required
Air CanadaVancouver-CalgaryEconomy5,0006,000 (+20%)
Air CanadaBrisbane-VancouverBusiness170,000140,000 (-21%)
Air EuropaMadrid-Panama CityEconomy48,00067,000 (+40%)
Air New ZealandAuckland-ChristchurchEconomy13,0006,000 (-54%)
Air New ZealandSydney-QueenstownEconomy13,00015,000 (+15%)
Air New ZealandAuckland-TokyoBusiness210,000120,000 (-43%)
All Nippon AirwaysSydney-TokyoBusiness54,000100,000 (+85%)
Air SerbiaBelgrade-LondonBusiness14,83430,000 (+102%)
Air SerbiaBelgrade-New YorkBusiness64,082100,000 (+56%)
American AirlinesSydney-Los AngelesBusiness62,500140,000 (+124%)
AsianaSydney-SeoulEconomy35,00067,000 (+91%)
Brussels AirlinesBrussels-CopenhagenBusiness9,00010,000 (+11%)
Brussels AirlinesBrussels-New YorkBusiness44,00080,000 (+82%)
Garuda IndonesiaMelbourne-DenpasarBusiness42,00060,000 (+43%)
Gulf AirSingapore-BahrainBusiness94,00080,000 (-15%)
Hainan AirlinesSanya-ShenzhenEconomy3,5006,000 (+71%)
Korean AirBrisbane-SeoulBusiness75,000100,000 (+33%)
Malaysia AirlinesKuala Lumpur-BangkokBusiness14,00020,000 (+43%)
Malaysia AirlinesPerth-Kuala LumpurBusiness40,00060,000 (+50%)
Oman AirMuscat-DohaEconomy3,0006,000 (+100%)
Oman AirMuscat-Kuala LumpurFirst72,000107,000 (+49%)
Royal Air MarocCasablanca-MontrealBusiness44,00080,000 (+82%)
SriLankan AirlinesColombo-Kuala LumpurBusiness22,00040,000 (+82%)
Virgin AustraliaSydney-MelbourneBusiness13,80010,000 (-27%)
Virgin AustraliaSydney-QueenstownEconomy6,90015,000 (+117%)
Virgin AustraliaMelbourne-PerthBusiness21,80045,000 (+106%)
Virgin AustraliaBrisbane-DenpasarBusiness33,80060,000 (+78%)
The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.
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It's all ex-TAP folks running Etihad now.

Don't expect things to get better....

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It's all ex-TAP folks running Etihad now.

Don't expect things to get better....

If the TAP Miles&Go program is anything to go by that is NOT good news! 😱

I'll have to start thinking about how to use my stash of EY miles within the next few weeks...

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What’s worse, it takes away another great use of AMEX warehoused points 🙁 Will have to book a HBA-BNE J flight at the cheap rates Before 7 Mar

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Booked a token HBA-MEL on VA last night to leave only a few thousand EY miles in my account. Were good redemptions available but like the speculation above, don’t think that will last the changes in the next few days.

I’ve never relished the 30+ minute calls to make a simple booking through EY guest contact centre. The agents are always pleasant and there’s never been a hold in my experience, but the process is always slow. Hopefully the online access to VA awards will be one benefit of the change.

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It's not as bad as I was expecting...

VA awards are now a bit costlier for anything above 500 miles compared to the token 6900 miles in Y.
Need to check through the usual others routes I fly with VA.

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Cheers for posting. Not totally disastrous. But minimal sweet spots now for virgin Australia. The way I read it, best deal seems to be less than 500 mile trip business class (10k Etihad Guest v 15.5k Velocity) - e.g. SYD-BNE, SYD-MEL, etc.
Otherwise there are a few marginally better than using velocity points, but nothing exciting that I can see
(Areas seem to be all around the top of the range in business class on shorter flights - up to 500 mile trips (10k Etihad v 15.5k velocity), 600-1000 mile trips (20k Etihad v 23.5k velocity), 1200-1500 mile trips (30k Etihad v 35.5k velocity)).
Economy seems to be marginal where a benefit exists - up to 500 mile trips (7k Etihad v 7.8k velocity), 1200-1500 mile trips (15k Etihad v 17.8k velocity).
The one area that appears worth transferring to Etihad for Virgin Australia really though is for short business class trips (up to 500 mile trip).
At least though any excess miles not spent will not be wasted though.

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click to expand...

I am just wary of the additional premium they seem to be charging on premium awards: 'A premium redemption fare will be applied based on demand and availability.' I read it as only applicable for EY (?).

Typical Etihad - but let's see how it goes.
I'd like to see as well what the availability for AA awards will be as every time I tried with a premium support agent - they never find anything.

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Has anyone else noticed that the new partner airline award chart is basically identical to the old EL AL award chart (which was brought in just recently)?

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What’s worse, it takes away another great use of AMEX warehoused points 🙁 Will have to book a HBA-BNE J flight at the cheap rates Before 7 Mar

Damn, forgot to book 🙁. Too many other things going on……

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I quickly booked a business class Adelaide to Brisbane flight for myself and wife (12,500 points each) a few nights ago to beat the changes, and am glad I did. It is 1,006 miles to fly Adelaide to Brisbane and that seems to suggest that it is now 30,000 points per person now. The points came with our reasonably priced business class flight from Kuala Lumpur to Paris with OmanAir, so that gave it extra value. I was able to buy Velocity points for $14 per thousand points so we purchased 2 business class flights back for approximately $370 each with taxes etc. (usually $500-$550 each) So, out of pocket expenses were $400 (business class) return per person. Not too squeezy.

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