Etihad Guest Program Guide: Everything You Need to Know

Etihad Guest, the frequent flyer program of Etihad Airways, used to be full of amazing sweet spots (such as American Airlines Flagship First to Australia for just 62,500 miles). However, in March 2023, Etihad Guest switched over to a new, consolidated award chart that applies to all partner award flights. And, Since all partners now follow the same award chart, those incredible sweet spots have pretty much disappeared. To make matters worse, many partner-operated and Etihad-operated award flights tend to cost many more miles than the rates stated in this new award chart.

Etihad Airways isn’t part of any of the three major airline alliances. However, the Etihad does have a long list of airline partners through which you can earn and redeem Etihad Guest miles. Plus, you can make transfers into Etihad Guest from several major transferable credit card rewards programs, including American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One Rewards and Citi ThankYou Rewards. This means that it’s fairly easy to accumulate Etihad miles. However, you should never transfer your credit card points into the Etihad Guest program unless you have a specific redemption in mind.

Eithad Guest also has its own elite status program. Unfortunately, unless you frequently take Etihad-operated flights, this program won’t be of much use to you because you can only earn Tier Miles (the metric used to earn Etihad elite status) on Etihad flights.

All in all, before Etihad Guest switched over to its new, consolidated partner award chart, it played a very important role in the airline miles industry. This program was a great place to book American Airlines business/first class award flights as well as premium cabin award flights with Royal Air Maroc, Brussels Airlines, ANA and Oman Air. However, after the new award chart took effect in March 2023, this program provides very little value for those who live outside of the United Arab Emirates.

Etihad Guest Program Overview

Etihad Airways is the national airline of the United Arab Emirates and the country’s second-largest airline behind Emirates. The airline has its hub at Abu Dhabi International Airport, from which it operates routes to over 70 destinations across Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and North America. Etihad’s fleet currently consists of over 70 aircraft, including several Airbus A380-800 airliners (currently the world’s largest commercial airliner).

Despite not being a part of any airline alliance, Etihad Airways still has a fairly long list of more than 20 airline partners with which you can earn and spend Etihad miles. Here are all of Etihad’s airline partners:

You can both earn and redeem Etihad miles with any of the aforementioned partners, which we’ll discuss more in-depth later in this article. Unfortunately, you can’t earn Tier Miles or Tier Segments (which are necessary for achieving Etihad Guest elite status) with partner airlines.

Etihad Guest Elite Status

Etihad Guest does have its own elite status program. However, this program will be of little interest to you unless you frequently fly with Etihad Airways or you have one of Etihad’s co-branded credit cards (which aren’t available in the U.S.). In order to earn elite status, you must either accumulate a certain number of Tier Segments (which can only be earned by flying on Etihad Airways) or a certain number of Tier Miles (which can only be earned by flying on Etihad Airways or spending on an Etihad co-branded credit card).

When flying with Etihad, the amount of Tier Miles you’ll earn is based on the actual number of miles flown and your cabin class. Here’s how many Tier Miles you’ll earn in each cabin class:

• Economy—1 Tier Mile per mile flown
• Business—1.5 Tier Miles per mile flown
• First—2 Tier Miles per mile flown

Likewise, the amount of Tier Segments you’ll earn per flight depends on the number of actual segments that you fly and your cabin class. Here’s how many Tier Miles you’ll earn in each cabin class:

• Economy—1 Tier Segment per segment flown
• Business—2 Tier Segments per segment flown
• First—3 Tier Segments per segment flown

Once again, to achieve elite status in the Etihad Guest program, you need to earn either the required number of Tier Miles or the required number of Tier Segments. The following table breaks down how many of each you’ll need to achieve each tier as well as the respective benefits that you’ll enjoy at each tier:

Once you achieve an elite status tier, you’ll have to earn the required number of Tier Miles or Tier Segments within 12 months after upgrading to maintain your elite status level. Otherwise, your status will be downgraded one tier at a time.

For instance, if you have Platinum elite status and you fail to earn 125,000 Tier Miles or 60 Tier Segments after your upgrade date, you’ll be downgraded to Gold elite status. From the date that you downgraded to Gold status, you’ll have 12 months to earn enough Tier Miles or Tier Segments to either maintain your Gold status or upgrade to Platinum status, or else you’ll be downgraded to Silver elite status.

Once again, the only ways to earn elite status with Etihad Guest are to take Etihad-operated flights or spend on an Etihad co-branded credit card (none of which are available in the U.S.). So, for most travelers outside of the United Arab Emirates, earning Etihad Guest elite status probably won’t be an option.

How to Earn Etihad Guest Miles

Unlike earning Tier Miles and Tier Segments, you can earn Etihad Guest miles by flying with either Etihad Airways or any one of their airline partners. On top of that, there are a ton of other ways to accumulate Etihad Guest miles, such as transferring credit card points, booking hotel stays, renting cars, buying merchandise and purchasing miles with cash.

Etihad Guest miles do expire. However, their expiration date depends on your status tier within the Etihad Guest program. For Bronze, Silver and Gold members, your miles expire after 18 months of non-use. However, you can extend this for another 18 months by making any eligible miles redemption. For Platinum members, Etihad miles do not expire.

So, let’s take a look at all of the different ways that you can boost your Etihad miles balance.

Flying with Etihad

When taking Etihad-operated flights, you’ll earn miles based on your cabin class, fare code and the actual number of miles flown. The following chart explains how many miles you’ll earn per mile flown in each cabin class:

*As a percentage of actual miles flown

If you’re wondering what Residence class is, it’s a three-room suite aboard Etihad Airbus A380 airliners that includes a bedroom, living room and lavatory (with a shower). The Residence by Etihad is potentially the most luxurious cabin in the sky, and it’s only available on certain routes. You can expect to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a flight in Residence class.

So, if you were to take a 1,000-mile flight in Business class on Etihad Airways with Choice fare type and fare code D, you’d earn 1,750 Etihad miles as a Bronze status member. As a Gold elite status member, you’d earn 2,625 miles (because Gold members earn 50% bonus miles on flights).

Alternatively, you can find out how many miles you’d earn for a specific Etihad-operated flight by using the Miles calculator tool on the Etihad website. You can simply enter your status tier, origin and destination, and this tool will tell you how many miles, Tier Miles and Tier Segments you’ll earn in each cabin class.

Flying with Partners

You can also earn Etihad miles by flying with any one of Etihad’s airline partners. If you want to know how many miles you could earn for a partner flight, you’ll have to visit the airline partners page on the Etihad Guest website. Then, you simply need to click on the specific partner you’ll be flying with and then click on the “Miles you’ll earn” drop-down menu to see that partner’s earnings chart.

For instance, here is the earnings chart for American Airlines from the Etihad Guest website:

As you can see, partner earnings charts are set up in pretty much the same way as Etihad’s own earnings chart. You’ll earn miles based on your cabin class, fare type and the distance of your flight in miles.

If you want to earn Etihad miles on a partner flight, you’ll need to provide your Etihad Guest membership number when making your booking and then present your Etihad Guest card during check-in.

Transfer Partners

Eithad Guest is partnered with several major transferable credit card points programs that allow you to convert your points to Etihad Guest miles at a 1:1 ratio. These programs include:

• American Express Membership Rewards
• Capital One Rewards
• Citi ThankYou Rewards

So, if you’re looking at a certain redemption through the Etihad Guest program, one of the best ways to boost your miles balance is to transfer your credit card points if you have a card from one of the aforementioned issuers.

It’s worth mentioning briefly that Etihad Guest does have its own co-branded credit cards that allow you to earn Etihad miles for everyday spending. However, none of these cards are available in the United States. So, if you want to earn Etihad miles for making everyday purchases, your best bet is probably to sign up for an Amex, Capital One or Citi card and then transfer those points into the Etihad Guest program.

There are also certain hotel rewards programs that allow you to convert points to Etihad miles, but this is generally not a very good idea. Here are the hotel programs that allow you to transfer points to Etihad Guest and their respective transfer ratios:

With all of the hotel rewards programs listed above, converting your points to Etihad Guest miles is a bad idea. In most cases, these programs offer unfavorable transfer ratios. And while Shangri-La Circles offers a 1:1 transfer ratio, Shangri-La points are typically considered far more valuable than Etihad miles.

Hotels and Rental Cars

In addition to transferring points from hotel rewards programs, you can also earn Etihad Guest miles directly for booking hotel stays at certain locations. Eithad Guest, like many other frequent flyer programs, has its very own online travel booking portal called Travel Rewards that allows you to earn Etihad miles for booking hotel stays as well as car rentals.

In order to do so, you simply have to log in to your Etihad Guest account and then select whether you’d like to book a rental car or a hotel stay.

After that, you can enter your destination, travel dates and number of guests. Then, once you hit the search button, you’ll see all results that match your search query as well as how many Etihad Guest miles you could earn for each booking.

The amount of miles you’ll earn for each hotel booking is tied to the cash rate for the room you’re booking. For car rentals, you’ll earn at least 250 miles per day with certain rentals earning significantly more than that.

Buying Merchandise

Another way to earn Etihad miles is by purchasing merchandise from one of Etihad’s retail partners or through Etihad’s own in-flight duty-free store. Each of Etihad’s retail partners has its own miles earnings rate. However, if you’re going to make a purchase from one of these retailers anyway, you may as well earn some Etihad miles while you’re at it.

Here’s a list of some of Etihad’s retail partners and their respective earnings rates:

• ASMALLWORLD: Earn 250,000 miles by purchasing ASMALLWORLD’s Prestige membership. Earn 1,000,000 miles by purchasing ASMALLWORLD’s Signature membership.
• Damas: Earn 1X mile per $3 spent on diamonds or diamond jewelry.
• Joyalukkas: Earn 1X mile per $3 spent on gold jewelry. Earn 1X mile per $1.3 spent on diamond jewelry.
• Montblanc: Earn 1X mile per $1 spent in any participating Montblanc Boutiques in the UAE or Oman.
• The Bicester Collection: Earn 1X mile per 1 British pound or 1 euro spent.

With all of the previously mentioned retail partners, you need to present your Etihad Guest card when making your purchases in order to earn miles on those purchases. Then, when Etihad Guest receives confirmation of your purchase, your miles will be credited to your account.

Etihad Airways also has its own in-flight duty-free shopping service called Etihad Boutique, which comes in the form of a print catalog. Through this service, you can purchase things like electronics, fragrances and much more. For each purchase you make, you’ll earn 1X mile per $1 spent.

Often, merchandise available through the Etihad Boutique in-flight duty free store can be purchased elsewhere for less money, and the miles you’ll earn don’t offset the difference in cost. So, in most cases, you should wait until you get off the plane to make those purchases.

Miles on the Go

The Etihad Guest app has a feature called Miles on the Go that allows you to link up to five credit cards and then earn miles for spending with certain partners. Most of these partners are located in the UAE. However, there are some partners outside of the UAE as well that could help you rack up some extra Etihad miles.

For more information on the Miles on the Go program, you can visit the Etihad Guest website.

Buying Miles

Like most other frequent flyer programs, Etihad Guest gives you the option to purchase miles with cash. Unfortunately, doing so is often a very poor deal and should be avoided. Most of the time you can purchase miles at a rate of 2 cents apiece. However, Etihad miles are rarely worth more than 2 cents apiece when redeemed, which makes it hard to justify buying miles. Occasionally, miles will be sold at a discount during limited-time promotions. But, even so, it’s usually better to avoid buying miles.

You can purchase up to 100,000 Etihad miles per year unless you have Platinum elite status, in which case you can buy 150,000 miles per year.

On top of buying miles outright, Etihad also has a feature called MilesBooster that allows you to boost the miles you’ve earned in the past 12 months by a multiplier of up to three (and a maximum of 150,000 points per year). With this feature, members can choose to either boost the miles they’ve earned from flights or the miles they’ve earned from other activities (including hotels, car rentals, credit card transactions and more). Then, they can choose to either double their miles from their selected activities or triple them.

While the exact cash rate that you have to pay to use the MilesBooster feature varies based on how many miles you’re boosting and what the source of those miles is, using this feature is almost always a bad idea.

How to Redeem Etihad Guest Miles

There are many ways to redeem your Etihad Guest miles. However, not all of these redemption methods provide the same amount of value per mile. So, in choosing which redemption method is the best for you, you should consider which method offers the highest value per mile by comparing the cash price of each redemption to its price in Etihad Guest miles.

In general, redeeming your miles for award flights with Etihad Airways and its airline partners is going to provide more value than any other kind of redemption. However, if you have a balance of Etihad miles and don’t have any interest in flying in the near future, then you may want to consider another redemption option.

So, in the following sections, we’ll compare all of the different ways to redeem Etihad miles and discuss which ones provide the most value per mile.

Flying with Etihad Airways

As previously stated, Etihad Airways recently implemented new award charts for its own award flights back in March 2023. This new award chart prices flights according to their distance as well as their cabin class. Here is the new award chart for Etihad-operated flights:

Alternatively, you can find out how many miles a certain Etihad-operated award flight would cost you by using the Miles calculator tool on the Etihad Airways website. With this tool, you can either search for the cost of a specific award flight by searching your origin and destination, or you can search for award flights in your budget by entering your origin, status tier and the number of miles you’re willing to spend. Then, this tool will present you with a list of potential destinations that are in your budget.

Unfortunately, the award prices that you see on the above award chart as well as the prices shown by the Miles calculator tool are minimum miles. Oftentimes, Etihad Airways tacks on extra miles to final redemption prices based on the demand.

For instance, according to the Miles calculator tool, a one-way flight in Economy class from Abu Dhabi to Tel Aviv should cost you 13,000 miles.

However, we found a direct one-way flight from Abu Dhabi to Tel Aviv through Etihad Guest that cost 18,224 miles (plus taxes and fees).

So, if you want an entirely accurate estimate of how many miles a certain award flight will cost you, you’ll have to log in to your Etihad Guest account and manually search for your desired flight.

Now that Etihad Guest uses a distance-based award chart, finding sweet spots is significantly more difficult, especially considering actual award prices are usually even higher than they appear on the award chart. In general, if you want to book an Etihad-operated award flight, Eithad Guest is not the best program through which to do so. You can often find more competitive rates for Etihad-operated award flights through programs such as Air Canada Aeroplan or American Airlines AAdvantage.

Flying with Partner Airlines

While Etihad Guest has really never been a great program for booking its own award flights, the program was once an amazing place for booking premium cabin awards operated by American Airlines, ANA, Brussels Airlines, Royal Air Maroc and others. Unfortunately, the change over to the new award charts has nearly eliminated all worthwhile sweet spots from the Etihad Guest program and has severely devalued this program as a whole.

Since March 2023, Etihad Guest has used a single award chart to price all partner-operated award flights:

Unlike with Etihad-operated award flights, the award prices displayed in this partner award chart seem to reflect actual partner award prices pretty closely. For instance, according to the above award chart, a one-way American Airlines-operated award flight from New York City (JFK) to San Francisco in Economy class should cost 34,000 miles. After searching for this flight on several dates through the Etihad Guest website, it seems that this price is accurate even on peak travel dates.

Likewise, a one-way American Airlines flight from San Francisco to New York in First class should cost you 80,000 miles, according to the new award chart. And, after searching this flight through Etihad Guest’s booking portal, we found that that held true as well.

Unfortunately, you can only book partner award flights from American Airlines and Virgin Australia online. Award flights operated by all other airline partners must be booked over the phone by calling Etihad Guest’s United States customer service line at +1(877) 690-0767.

As previously mentioned, nearly all of the sweet spots in the Etihad Guest program were eliminated when the program switched over to its new partner award chart. For award flights operated by American Airlines or Virgin Australia (the only Etihad partners that can be booked online through Etihad Guest), you’re almost always going to be better off booking those awards through their native programs.

For instance, we found the exact same American Airlines-operated First class award flight from San Francisco to New York City (JFK) on November 22, 2023, that cost 80,000 Etihad miles through American Airlines AAdvantage for just 49,500 AAdvantage miles.

For all other airline partners, you’re probably better off booking their awards through other programs as well. Plus, with other frequent flyer programs, you won’t have to go through the hassle of booking their awards over the phone as you would with Etihad Guest.

Hotels and Rental Cars

On top of earning Etihad miles by booking hotels and rental cars, you can also redeem your miles for hotels and rental cars through the same Travel Rewards booking portal. To do so, you simply need to select the “Spend miles” option when searching for your hotel or rental car. Then, you can enter your desired destination, travel dates and number of guests, and hit the ”Search” button.

From there, you’ll be presented with a list of hotels or rental cars that match your search query and their respective rates in Etihad miles. You also have the option to pay with a combination of miles and cash.

In general, using your miles to book hotels and rental cars through the Travel Rewards portal provides decent value per mile. For instance, we found an award booking at the Trump International Hotel & Tower New York for 326,000 miles per night.

If you were to book the same hotel on the same nights with cash, it would cost you $3,749 per night.

So, this redemption would yield a value of slightly over 1 cent per mile, which is pretty solid for booking a hotel with airline miles. And, considering that you won’t be able to find much higher value than 1 cent per mile by booking award flights with Etihad miles, redeeming your miles for hotel stays is a decent consideration.

Likewise, Etihad miles are usually worth around 0.8 cents per point when redeemed for rental cars through the Travel Rewards portal. And, while that’s a fairly low value, considering that Etihad miles aren’t worth much more when redeemed for award flights, redeeming your miles for car rentals may be worth considering.

Buying Merchandise

You can also use your miles to buy merchandise through Etihad Guest’s shopping portal. This portal has all types of items available, including electronics, health and beauty products, home and garden items, fashion products and more.

Unfortunately, redeeming your miles for merchandise usually yields a pretty low value per mile. For example, you can purchase these Beats Fit Pro True Wireless Noise Cancelling Earbuds for 32,730 miles through the Etihad Guest shopping portal.

Alternatively, you could buy these same earbuds with cash from the Beats website for $199.99.

Thus, this redemption would yield a value of slightly above 0.6 cents per point, which is very poor compared to other redemption options.

Etihad Guest also has a redemption option called Pointspay that allows you to apply your points to reduce the cash price of merchandise purchased from one of their partnered merchants. To see a full list of these merchants, you can visit the Etihad Guest website here. Unfortunately, very few of these merchants are available to U.S. consumers, and redeeming your miles this way isn’t a very good value.

Reward Card

Etihad Guest offers the unique redemption option of allowing you to turn your miles into cash that can be used anywhere in the world, online or in-store, through their Reward Card app. This app allows you to redeem your miles for cash, which is loaded onto a virtual Visa card that can be used like a gift card at any merchant that accepts Visa payments.

This is a unique redemption option in the airline miles industry, as very few other frequent flyer programs allow you to directly turn your miles into cash. While this redemption method definitely isn’t the best way to maximize the value of your points, it’s still a nice option to have, especially if you don’t plan on traveling in the near future.

The amount of value per point you’ll get with this redemption method depends on how many Etihad miles you load onto your card at once. There is a non-refundable loading fee of 167 miles every time you want to load more miles onto your Reward Card, so it’s best to load large sums of miles all at once rather than loading small amounts several times.

No matter how many miles you load onto your card at once, though, the value you receive is not going to exceed 1 cent per point (and will be considerably less than that if you load smaller amounts). However, if you don’t plan on traveling anytime soon, or you have a balance of Etihad miles that are due to expire soon, then converting your miles into cash using an Etihad Guest Reward Card might not be a bad idea.

Donate Your Miles

If you want to use your Etihad miles for a selfless purpose, you have the option to donate your miles to benefit one of Etihad Guest’s partner charities. Currently, Etihad Guest is working with several different programs including UNHCR (The UN Refugee Agency), SolarBuddy and Reach Campaign. You can donate as little as 1,120 miles to help people in need.

The exact value per mile you’ll receive when redeeming your points for donations is unclear. However, if you want to use your miles to make a positive impact on the world, donating them is a good way to do so.

The Bottom Line

Prior to March 2023, Etihad Guest had several sweet spots that made its frequent flyer program worth paying attention to despite the fact that those sweet spots could only be booked over the phone. However, since the program switched over to one standard award chart for all partners and a new award chart for its own award flights in March 2023, those sweet spots have pretty much disappeared.

While the program did recently add the ability to book American Airlines and Virgin Australia flights online through the Etihad Guest website, you can find much better prices for award flights from these airlines elsewhere. And, in fact, there are even better programs for booking Etihad-operated award flights than Etihad Guest, such as Air Canada Aeroplan.

All in all, the changes made to this program in March 2023 resulted in a massive devaluation and have made Etihad Guest a program that’s not really worth paying attention to unless you fly with Etihad Airways frequently.

Luckily, if you already have a balance of Etihad miles and you want to get some value out of them, Etihad Guest has the unique redemption option of turning your miles into cash through Etihad’s Reward Card app. This is a quick and easy way to get out of this program while still getting some value from your miles.