Hidden Gem: Royal Air Maroc Business Class to Asia for 44,000 Miles

UPDATE: Etihad has changed the terms and conditions which make this award cost 88,000 miles. Check out our article on what these changes mean for booking Royal Air Maroc.

If you’ve poked around our Facebook community, you might have seen me talk about using Etihad miles. Specifically, I’ve often talked about how flying Royal Air Maroc can be a clever way to get to Europe when you’re struggling to find award space. While options like this one are so easily overlooked, they can be tremendously useful.

In fact, Etihad’s partnership with Royal Air Maroc just got even better. Royal Air Maroc has just announced that it will start flying to China and that opens up a fantastic way to use Etihad Guest miles on a trip to Asia.

Fly Royal Air Maroc from the East Coast to China

Booking Cathay Pacific business class to Asia for 50,000 Alaska Mileage Plan miles or 70,000 American AAdvantage miles are probably the most talked-about ways to fly to Asia, but you won’t want to sleep on this one. With 44,000 Etihad miles, you can book a one-way business class ticket on Royal Air Maroc to Beijing (PEK). If economy class is more your style, you’d only need 22,000 miles to book it.

Royal Air Maroc operates flights between Casablanca (CMN) and 4 U.S. airports. To book this hidden gem, you’ll need to fly out of Boston (BOS), Miami (MIA), New York (JFK) or Washington Dulles (IAD). There’s also a flight out of Montreal (YUL) if you feel like booking a positioning flight to Canada.

If you decide to book business class, you’ll have a lie-flat seat with direct aisle access as the cabin is arranged in a 1-2-1 reverse herringbone layout. Solo travelers will enjoy the window seats that are angled away from the aisle as you’ll have the most privacy.

However, if you’re traveling with a friend or loved one, the middle section seats are your best bet as they’re angled toward each other so you can chat more easily. Unless you want to avoid them, of course. Awkward.

Etihad Transfer Partners

What makes this even better is how easy it is to earn Etihad Guest miles. You can transfer Amex Membership Rewards points or Citi ThankYou Points to your Etihad account at a 1:1 ratio. Transfers from American Express are usually instant while transfers from Citi can take a few days.

Additionally, you can also transfer Capital One miles at a 2:1.5 ratio and transfers generally take no more than 24 hours. Just remember that with the 2:1.5 ratio, you’ll need to transfer 59,000 Capital One miles for a one-way business class ticket or 30,000 for economy.

Possible Stopover?

If you look at Etihad’s terms and conditions for award tickets on Royal Air Maroc, you’ll see that they technically say you can include a stopover. In practice, this hasn’t always been the case. Either way, 44,000 miles for business class and 22,000 miles for economy are still great deals.

Personally, I’d try to book business class as a flight from the east coast to Casablanca is 6.5 to 8 hours and the flight to Beijing will add another 12 hours. If you booked flights back to the states from Beijing, the flights would be about 13 hours and 7.5 to 9.5 hours.

If you’re going to spend up to 22.5 hours on a plane without a few days in between, you might as well book a lie-flat seat!

How to Book with Etihad Guest

Perhaps the biggest downside to booking with Etihad Guest is that you can’t search for award space on Etihad’s site which means you can’t book online. However, its call center in Serbia is generally pretty good so booking isn’t usually a pain.

Since Royal Air Maroc doesn’t operate flights daily out of every U.S. airport (or Montreal), I’d suggest using Google Flights to quickly determine which days Royal Air Maroc has flights on your preferred route. Once you’ve done that, you can search for award space one of two ways.

First, you can search online with Royal Air Maroc. To do so, you’ll need to create a Safar Flyer account — this is Royal Air Maroc’s frequent flyer program. Once you’ve done that, you can login and run a search online. You’ll need to select “Buy your ticket with miles” or you can go straight to the award booking page.

Don’t worry about the Safar Flyer award rates you see. That has nothing do with what Etihad will require.

Once you’ve found award space on Safar Flyer, you can call Etihad Guest (877-690-0767) and ask an agent to search for the dates on which you found award space. In my experience, it doesn’t always match up exactly but it’s a very good start.

Your second option for finding award space is to simply call Etihad Guest and ask them to look for award space on your desired date. I’d still start with a Google Flights search so you aren’t asking them to look for flights on dates when Royal Air Maroc doesn’t have flights from your desired airport.

While this is always subject to change, I’ve found New York has had the best award availability.

How to Earn Etihad Guest Miles

As I mentioned earlier, it’s super easy to earn the necessary miles as Etihad is a transfer partner of American Express, Capital One and Citi. Heck, you can even transfer Marriott Bonvoy points to your Etihad Guest account if you want.

Beyond just having several transfer partners, Amex and Citi each offer a few cards with lucrative bonus categories to help you earn even more Membership Rewards points and ThankYou Points, respectively. Of course, the hefty welcome bonuses they offer don’t hurt either!

Personally, Amex has been my go-to choice for transfers to Etihad because the transfers are instant and I don’t have to worry about award space getting taken while I wait for a transfer to process.

Final Thoughts

While the three major airline alliances — Oneworld, SkyTeam and Star Alliance — are very useful, individual partnerships like the one Etihad has with Royal Air Maroc can really come through for you. They don’t get as much chatter but could mean you end up using more points and miles than necessary.

So, if you’re looking for a flight to Asia starting January 16, 2020 and you have Amex, Capital One or Citi points, make sure you give Royal Air Maroc a look — especially, if you’re looking to book business class.

Featured image credit: Royal Air Maroc