The expansion of Etihad Guest – and earn 5,000 bonus Etihad miles with Rocketmiles

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I wrote a few weeks ago about Rocketmiles, the hotel booking service that rewards you with very large chunks of frequent flyer miles for every night you book. Although not Avios, unfortunately ….

Rocketmiles is currently expanding its partnership with Etihad Guest. As a result, they are offering 3,000-5,000 bonus Etihad Guest miles with any Rocketmiles hotel booking. This means that you could earn up to a (fairly crazy) 10,000 Etihad miles from just one hotel night.

You can access the promotion here for a 3,000 mile bonus. This link is only meant for Etihad status members and offers 5,000 bonus miles. You may or may not want to risk trying this one if you have no status.

The rules are:

You need to be a new Rocketmiles customer, so if you’ve used them before you’ll need to sign-up again with different details

Only one 3,000 / 5,000 Etihad Guest miles bonus per person

Book before 2nd November

Stay before 28th February

As Rocketmiles acts as a wholesaler with its hotels, you will not receive status benefits or points if you have status with the chain where you stay. You may or may not receive credit for incidental spend. If you collect Etihad Guest miles, though, then that is a modest price to pay to pick up this bonus.

The expansion of Etihad Guest

I have just made my first Etihad Guest redemption, as it happens. Our nanny is flying from Dubai to Istanbul – well, from Abu Dhabi, but its a modest ride.

I booked this using transferred Amex Membership Rewards points. Etihad is even doing a 20% bonus on Amex and hotel transfers at the moment, although the bonus posts two weeks in arrears.

The scheme is becoming more active in the UK. As well as the Amex Membership Rewards partnership, they even have their own UK credit card now – albeit the sign-up bonus is poor.

Especially for Head for Points readers who live outside London, Etihad may be worth considering more closely. My biggest issue is that, as far as I know, they only release two business class seats per flight, which is bad news for a family. The on-board hard product does seem very good, especially the First Class suites.

Istanbul to Abu Dhabi is just 30,248 Etihad miles plus £12 tax – one way, in a First Class suite as seen above. Availability seems excellent, and you could book that with 26,000 Amex points given the current 20% bonus. Not bad!

How to earn Etihad Guest miles from UK credit cards (December 2021)

Etihad Guest does not have a UK credit card. However, you can earn Etihad Guest miles by converting Membership Rewards points earned from selected UK American Express cards. These are:

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 20,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 20,000 Etihad Guest miles. This card is FREE for your first year and also comes with two free airport lounge passes.

The Platinum Card from American Express (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 30,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 30,000 Etihad Guest miles.

American Express Rewards credit card (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 5,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 5,000 Etihad Guest miles. This card is FREE for life.

Membership Rewards points convert at 1:1 into Etihad Guest miles which is an attractive rate. The cards above all earn 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent on your card, which converts to 1 Etihad Guest mile. The Gold card earns double points (2 per £1) on all flights you charge to it.

Etihad Guest is also a partner with the HSBC Premier Mastercard (0.5 miles per £1 spent) and HSBC Premier World Elite Mastercard (1 mile per £1 spent).

Category

Etihad and Etihad Guest

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

Wozza2404 says:

3 Oct3 October 07:28

I got this email yesterday, but mine is a 5k bonus and up to 5k a night. Might be status related.
- Rob says:
  
  3 Oct3 October 08:09
  
  If the click-through link isn’t coded (or if you can delete the coding and still have it work), please post!
  - Rob says:
    
    3 Oct3 October 08:29
    
    Thanks. I have updated the main post, no need to have people lose 2k!
    - M says:
      
      3 Oct3 October 21:00
      
      You have to be at least Etihad Silver to get the 5k bonus “Plus, for a limited time, Etihad Guest Silver, Etihad Guest Gold, & Etihad Guest Gold Elites earn an additional 5,000 bonus miles on your first booking.”
      - Rob says:
        
        3 Oct3 October 21:42
        
        Good spot, thanks.
Volker says:

3 Oct3 October 07:34

Your item implies that you provided your nanny with a free first class ticket to Istanbul. Please let me know whenever you need a reliable butler – I’ve got my CV ready! 😀
- Rob says:
  
  3 Oct3 October 08:08
  
  The implication is correct! However, the alternative was a business class ticket back to London on BA with a fat pile of fuel surcharges – so burning a small number of Amex points with £13 of taxes was actually a good result 🙂 Don’t even need to pay for a taxi to the airport as Etihad will pick her up (she leaves before we do).
  - Ian says:
    
    3 Oct3 October 09:26
    
    I wish you were my boss – economy class EVERYWHERE where I work.
    - Rob says:
      
      3 Oct3 October 09:53
      
      Here’s the thing. I spent 15 years in a company where it was business class everywhere, even Paris. I therefore use that as the same basis with our ‘staff’ (plus the same rules on taking taxis home etc). What goes around comes around!
Gordon says:

3 Oct3 October 08:00

I got the email as well. Ignoring the bonus miles they are offering up to 5000 per night. If you need to book say 5 nights, can you book it one night t a time and earn the basic bonus for each night?
- Rob says:
  
  3 Oct3 October 08:35
  
  You don’t need to book 1 night at a time. If you book a 5 night stay at a 5k property, you get 25,000 miles! Do a dummy booking and see.
  - Gordon says:
    
    3 Oct3 October 08:47
    
    I tried and it didnt seem to work for me
    - Elena says:
      
      3 Oct3 October 17:14
      
      Same here, i did the same. I was looking for hotels in Dubai in Nov and London in Oct and if you do 5 days it comes with total of 10K points. If you do each night it is 5K per night:)
      So I guess it will be each night booking.
      - Gordon says:
        
        3 Oct3 October 17:55
        
        I think what is happening is we are seeing a hotel which is only paying 1000 per night so 5 nights at 1000 plus 5000 bonus gives 10k. I have tried a few places and there are very few 5k per night hotels. If you are travelling with a partner ou could split the booking and at least get the 5k bonus each on top of the nightly rate
Tony says:

3 Oct3 October 09:44

Note that headline prices on rocketmiles exclude taxes (and some made up fees…)
erico1875 says:

3 Oct3 October 11:12

I had a look at HILTON JUMEIRA BEACH

Rocketmiles price $299 per night
Booking.com. $254 per night

Id imagine HHonours will be similar price to booking.com
- Rob says:
  
  3 Oct3 October 12:59
  
  Rocketmiles do aim, I believe, to match competing prices where they can – the miles are funded from their wholesale margin, not higher prices!
Brian says:

3 Oct3 October 14:10

My brother got a letter from Etihad Guest offering a 17,000 mile bonus for signing up for the credit card by the end of October. 5,000 if you spend £250 within 90 days and an extra 12,000 if your spending reaches 1,500. That’s not bad. Plus you get 1.5 miles per pound spent on the Amex card.
- Rob says:
  
  3 Oct3 October 14:11
  
  I’ve seen this letter. Seems targetted, annoyingly, as not on MBNA or Etihad sites.
  
  As MBNA only lets you have a bonus once, in general, it is too risky to post the link in case they only give you the usual 5k and you miss out on a bigger bonus later.
  - Thywillbedone says:
    
    3 Oct3 October 16:10
    
    Is this not it?
    
    http://www.etihadairways.com/sites/Etihad/global/en/guestrecognition/visitor/etihadguest/PartnerDetails/Pages/mbna-ey-guest-credit-card.aspx
    - Rob says:
      
      3 Oct3 October 16:17
      
      Ah, great! I checked this yesterday and it wasn’t on the site so I assumed it was targeted.
      
      This looks good, I might even get one for myself!
      
      Thanks you. Post to follow.
- Max says:
  
  3 Oct3 October 19:54
  
  So how much are !7,000 Etihad points worth and where can you fly with these?
  - Rob says:
    
    3 Oct3 October 20:19
    
    Post tomorrow. Worst case is £70 of Visa gift card.
Elena says:

3 Oct3 October 20:47

I don’t have any points on Etihad, but wanted to see how many I need for redemption for business or first from Istanbul to Abu Dhabi.

It seems it will not let me see redemption miles as I have 0 in my account.

Do you know any way around this?

Thank you
Elena
- Rob says:
  
  3 Oct3 October 20:51
  
  First is 30,000, business is 20,000 (give or take 1,000), each way. No tax.
  
  Chauffeur in Abu Dhabi with F or Business, no car in Istanbul though.
Rob says:

3 Oct3 October 21:49

I have rewritten the post to reflect this. Not sure if you wouldn’t get the 5,000 anyway though ….