Etihad Loyalty Program: What Travelers Need to Know

Etihad Airways primarily flies to and from its hub in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t fly it to reach many destinations worldwide. Though Etihad isn't a member of any of the major airline alliances, it has more than 20 airline partners that fly around the world.

Here’s what a strategic points collector needs to know and understand about Etihad Airways and its loyalty program, Etihad Guest.

Here’s a quick overview of a few key features of the airline:

• Fare types: Etihad operates economy class, business class and first class cabins. In economy, you can book Sale, Value, Choice, Choice Plus and Guest Seat fares. In business class, you can choose between Value, Choice, Choice Plus and Guest Seat fares. Flying first class offers two fare types only: First and Guest Seat. Each of the fare classes include different levels of perks. For example, a Sale economy ticket earns 25% miles and doesn’t allow refunds, while a Choice Plus ticket earns 100% miles and allows refunds for a fee.

• Main U.S. routes: Etihad flies from its hub in Abu Dhabi to a handful of North American cities, including Boston, Chicago, Washington, D.C., New York City and Toronto.

• Etihad frequent flyer program and points currency: Etihad’s loyalty program is called Etihad Guest, and the program's currency is simply called Etihad Guest Miles. With its excellent partner redemption options, it may be one of the most underrated airline programs.

• Elite status levels: Etihad has four elite status levels: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum.

» Learn more: The best airline credit cards right now

Similar to other airline loyalty programs, when you frequently fly on Etihad, you can earn elite status that gives you extra perks and boosts your mileage earnings when flying.

Etihad has four status tiers that range from Bronze at the lowest level up to Platinum at the top level. When you join Etihad Guest, you automatically earn Bronze status, which, as you would expect, doesn't offer many tangible benefits beyond a 10% discount on inflight Wi-Fi.

How to earn Etihad elite status

Here’s how you can earn status, broken down by tier*:

*As of June 2024, Etihad will remove tier segments as a metric for earning status.

Elite status benefits

Once you’ve earned status with Etihad Guest, you’ll start to enjoy benefits like earning bonus miles, getting upgraded, having lounge access and more.

Below is a comparison of the unique benefits that each status tier level offers. Bronze level gets you none of the benefits listed for the higher levels outside of a 10% Wi-Fi discount and instant upgrades with miles at the airport.

» Learn more: The beginner's guide to points and miles

Although Etihad isn’t in one of the three main airline alliances, Etihad has a solid network of 21 airline partners on which you can earn and redeem your miles.

In addition to these airlines, Etihad also maintains a network of codeshare partners, and as long as the flight is sold and marketed by Etihad (your flight starts with EY), you can earn Guest miles on those flights.

The first step to start earning Etihad miles is to join the Etihad Guest program. Once you’re enrolled, you can earn miles when you fly with Etihad and any of Etihad’s partner airlines.

Earn by flying Etihad

The most straightforward way to earn Etihad Guest miles is by flying on Etihad Airways. The earn rate is as follows:

The amount of miles you earn will also be affected by your elite status with Etihad. Silver, Gold and Platinum members earn 25%, 50% and 75% bonus miles, respectively, on flights. Bronze members do not earn any bonus miles.

Use the Etihad miles earning calculator to determine how many miles you can earn on your next trip.

Earn with Etihad airline partners

If you book a flight with a partner airline and input your Etihad Guest miles number, you’ll be able to earn Etihad miles on that ticket. Similar to flying Etihad, the number of miles you earn depends on the fare class you book. For example, if you’re flying with American Airlines, the number of Etihad miles you earn will be based on this chart:

So if you book an American Airlines economy seat in class N, you’ll earn 50% of the miles flown.

Earn by spending on credit cards

Unfortunately, Etihad doesn’t have a co-branded credit card in the U.S. that allows you to rack up miles with everyday purchases. The good news is that you can easily earn transferable points from other credit cards (more below).

» Learn more: The best credit cards for international travel

Sign up for transferable point cards and transfer points to Etihad

Etihad Guest is a transfer partner of American Express, Citi, Capital One and Marriott Bonvoy, which means that if you have a transferable point card from one of these programs, you will be able to transfer your points to Etihad. With the exception of Marriott, points transfers to Etihad are at a 1:1 ratio.

So, you’ll get 10,000 Etihad miles when you transfer 10,000 points from American Express, Citi or Capital One. For example, if you have the Citi Premier® Card you earn Citi ThankYou points, which you can then transfer to Etihad.

Although the transfer ratio between Marriott Bonvoy and Etihad isn't ideal, you will get an extra 5,000 Etihad Guest bonus miles every time you transfer 60,000 Marriott Bonvoy points. So if you transfer 60,000 Marriott points, you'll end up with 25,000 Etihad miles.

Earn Etihad miles by staying at hotels

There are two ways to earn Etihad miles when staying at hotels:

1. Book a stay through Etihad’s hotel platform called Travel Rewards.

2. Book a stay with one of Etihad’s hotel partners (using the link provided by Etihad or on the hotel’s website). Note that if you choose to earn Etihad miles when booking with a hotel directly, you’ll likely forego any hotel points earned.

Etihad hotel booked through Travel Rewards

A three-night hotel stay in Abu Dhabi booked through Etihad’s hotel platform shows the number of Etihad miles you’d earn on a specific booking.

So, if you wanted to book the Conrad, you’d earn 38,000 Etihad miles on this stay. It's important to note that Conrad is part of Hilton, so if you book on this platform, you’d forgo any Hilton points (or loyalty perks) earned. If you’re a Hilton loyalist and want to earn your Honors points and elite status privileges, you’d be better off booking directly on Hilton’s website or app.

However, if you don’t care about earning Hilton points and would rather earn Etihad miles, or if the hotel you choose isn’t part of a chain that you want to earn points or loyalty privileges with, booking on this platform could be an easy way to earn Etihad miles.

Earn Etihad miles with specific hotels

Etihad is also partnered with some hotels and online travel agencies (OTAs), allowing you to earn Etihad miles on your bookings. Current partners include Hyatt, IHG, Marriott, Booking.com and more.

Each program has a different earn rate so you’ll want to do the math to figure out if booking makes sense. Some of these programs also allow you to convert your hotel points to Etihad.

For example, you can earn 500 Etihad miles for each qualifying hotel stay at an IHG property. In addition, you can also convert IHG One Rewards points to Etihad miles at a rate of 10,000 IHG points = 2,000 Etihad miles.

Earn Etihad miles for renting a car with Avis or Budget

You can also earn Etihad miles when you book a car rental with Avis or Budget. Both programs allow you to earn up to 5 Etihad miles per $1 spent and up to a 5,000 mile bonus on your first rental. The earn rate and bonus amount depends on your Etihad status tier.

When reserving with Avis, you can pick up an extra 1,000 Etihad miles if you sign up for Avis Preferred.

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Earn Etihad miles for shopping online

You can earn bonus miles when you shop with Etihad’s shopping partners. The stores include a luxury jewelry store, an optical shop and a global community membership.

Buy Etihad miles

You also can buy Etihad guest miles on Etihad’s website. You can buy up to 100,000 miles per year unless you are a Platinum elite, in which case you can buy up to 150,000 miles. However, buying miles is generally not a good idea.

You'll pay 2 cents per mile when buying miles, which is quite expensive. The smallest increment for purchase is 1,000 miles, which will cost $20. However, if you’re a few thousand miles short of a valuable award ticket, a miles purchase could make sense.

» Learn more: Is buying miles worth it?

There are a few important things to know when redeeming Etihad Guest miles for maximum value. If you’re trying to redeem an award ticket with Etihad, American Airlines, SriLankan Airlines or Virgin Australia, you can use the Etihad guest miles redemption calculator to help you find out the cost of your redemption.

On Etihad flights

Etihad allows award redemptions in economy, business and first class. All redemptions are according to Etihad’s distance based award chart, with award prices starting at the rates shown below.

So for a flight from Chicago-O'Hare to Abu Dhabi (AUD), which is nearly 7,300 miles, the price of your award ticket would start at 60,000 miles for economy, 110,000 miles for business class and 220,000 miles for first class.

On partner flights

Etihad isn't part of the three major airline alliances. However, it does have a long list of partner airlines, which makes it possible to use your miles to fly to almost anywhere in the world. The airline has a partner award chart that it uses for travel on all its partners:

Just like its own award chart, the partner award chart is also distance based. As you expect, with a distance-based award chart, it often takes a bit of legwork to find which partner offers the best value when it comes to redemptions.

To book an award flight on one of Etihad’s partners, you may have luck booking the award flight online. However, you may need to call Etihad’s guest service center if you don’t see the airline listed that you’re trying to book. Similar to other airline programs, this can be a hit-or-miss experience.

There are some exceptional sweet spots that you’ll want to be aware of when redeeming Etihad Guest miles. These include:

• Prague to Seoul in business class for 25,610 miles one way.

• U.S. East Coast to Brussels in business class for 44,000 miles one way.

• U.S. East Coast to Morocco (and potentially continue on to Europe) in business class for 44,000 miles one way.

Other redemption options

• Upgrade with miles: You can use your Etihad miles to upgrade your ticket to first or business class.

• Etihad holidays: Use your miles to book a complete holiday package, in partnership with over 300,000 hotels worldwide.

• Shopping: You can spend miles through Etihad’s shopping portal, but we generally don’t recommend this as you get less value per mile than if you redeemed miles on flights.

• Pay for hotels and car rentals: Redeem miles to book a hotel stay or car rental.

» Learn more: Unexpected sweet spots for international airline award programs

Although Etihad Airways may not be a household name for the average U.S.-based flyer, it’s still worth considering if you’re looking to maximize your credit card rewards points.

You can use Guest Miles to book tickets with Etihad partners and given that the program is a transfer partner of three major credit card rewards programs, it’s considerably easy to acquire enough miles to book an award flight.