What to do with the miles from your £1,275 Etihad Australia ticket? BA Bronze benefits for a start

Yesterday I wrote about the amazing Etihad business class fares currently available.

These include business class to Australia on an A380 from as little as £1,275 (starting in Istanbul) or £1,400 from Dusseldorf.  There are also some excellent fares out of London such as £1,100 to Abu Dhabi.

You have until Monday to book – make sure you read my original article first for ideas.  You can travel at any point until 12th December.

Where should you credit miles from Etihad flights?

Etihad is not a British Airways partner so you can’t credit them to BA Executive Club.  You will earn about 25,000 miles return to Sydney (Z class tickets earn 115% of miles flown) – here are a few options for how to use them.

Credit to Etihad Guest and redeem for cash via PointsPay

Etihad lets you cash out your miles for, well, cash.  This is via a virtual Visa card system called PointsPay which I covered here.  You will get about 0.4p per mile.

Credit to Etihad Guest and redeem for gift cards via Etihad’s Reward Shop

You can buy gift cards for various UK shops via Reward Shop, including amazon.co.uk gift cards.  You will get around 0.45p per mile.

Credit to Etihad Guest and redeem on an Etihad partner airline

Whilst not in a major alliance, you can redeem Etihad Guest miles on various partner airlines.  Unfortunately, apart from those airlines where Etihad has a shareholding (Alitalia, airberlin etc) or its US partner American Airlines, it can be very tricky to find space.  I wrote more about Etihad’s partners here.

You can top up your Etihad Guest balance using American Express Membership Rewards, Heathrow Rewards or by taking out the UK Etihad Guest credit card.

Credit to Etihad anyway if you are travelling with other people

Etihad has family accounts – see here – allowing you to pool the miles from other people travelling with you.  This will give you a decent mileage pool and far more flexibility when redeeming.

Credit to another airline

wheretocredit.com shows which airlines will give you credit for a Z class fare on Etihad.   There are 14 options.

If you don’t want to credit to Etihad, SAS may be an option as you could top up your balance using American Express Membership Rewards points.  SAS allows you to redeem across all of the Star Alliance airlines.

Credit to airberlin and get British Airways Bronze equivalent

airberlin is partly owned by Etihad and is also a member of the oneworld alliance.  This means that:

you can redeem airberlin miles on British Airways and

if you have airberlin status, you can use it to enter BA lounges or get other BA status benefits

As you can see here, airberlin topbonus Silver status requires you to earn 25,000 status miles.  You should get that from an Australia business class return with Etihad, given that you receive 115% of miles flown.  topbonus Silver gives you the same benefits on BA as a BA Bronze card – you don’t get lounge access but you would get free seat selection seven days before departure, priority boarding and use of BA’s business class check-in desks.

If you were thinking of booking one of the Etihad deals, I hope these ideas convince you that the miles will not be wasted.

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).