Etihad 4-day sale – Australia for £1,600 in Business ex-Europe …. and more

Etihad Airways has launched a 96 Hour Early Bird Sale.  Since it actually launched yesterday, it is now a 72 Hour Early Bird Sale, ending on May 21st.

It is a simple promotion aimed at driving advanced bookings:

Book by May 21st

Travel between September 14th and February 29th

From the UK, the prices are OK but not life changing.  In Business Class, Dubai is £1715, Bangkok is £1776, Mumbai is £1409.

You get more interesting results looking further afield.  Let’s take Sydney.

Athens to Sydney is pricing at £1600 (€2,212) in Business Class in November.  Even more impressively, that books you onto the A380 on the Abu Dhabi to Sydney section which means you will be in the new Business Class Studio which I reviewed here.

Other routes are not as good.  Dublin to Sydney is €3,100, for example – still a very good price but £600 more than starting in Athens.  Athens to Bangkok is €1721 which, whilst cheap, is not as good as the recent £800 Qatar fares from Denmark.

Cape Town from Athens at €1690 – for their Summer season – looks a good deal.  That would involve four planes though, including the connection from the UK to Athens, which might be getting a bit silly.

This sale will combine with the ‘400% miles in Business Class’ offer currently running, which means that you would end up with a huge amount of Etihad Guest miles as well – AT LEAST enough for a First Class return flight to Abu Dhabi.

Details of the 96 Hour Sale deals can be found here.   If you are interested in booking long-haul travel for the Winter, it might be worth spending 15 minutes playing around with random departure points.

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).