1,000 free Etihad Guest miles for everyone – and an upgrade to Silver after one flight

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• 1000 free miles (and Silver status offer) with Heinemann Duty free says:

  9 Mar9 March 05:00

  […] head for points 1,000 free Etihad Guest miles and Silver status Reply With […]

• Liz says:

  9 Mar9 March 07:29

  Is this one of the schemes that if you don’t use your miles within 3 years you lose them even if you have added to the account later.. No plans to use Etihad soon but may in the future so wondering whether to open this account and get the free miles or not.

  • Hingeless says:

    9 Mar9 March 07:31

    You can also use them on partner airlines such as air Berlin, you can also setup a household account

  • James67 says:

    9 Mar9 March 10:43

    Even worse than that Liz, a year if my memory serves me right and my account page is correct. Since the devaluation last summer it is debatable whether EG is worth the hassle at all but having said that you can cashout easily kbtined mkles on a bunch of giftcards if pointspay. Also for thise who actually fly EY you can collect miles quickly as double and triplemiles on flights are common.

  • InsideFlyer Tom says:

    9 Mar9 March 10:47

    I seem to be a fairly lone voice, but I’m a huge fan of Etihad Guest, I’d take an Etihad Guest mile over an Avios mile( ? point? I never know) every time. Yes expiry is a touch draconian, but it’s 2-3 years (depending on status) so it’s not stupidly tight.

    The recent devaluation was a sucker punch, but there is still a lot of value in the low-priced GuestSeat redemptions in the premium cabins and availability is excellent. They also offer loads of point bonuses on flights, Amex transfers etc. I recommend you get stuck in.

    • Rob says:

      9 Mar9 March 12:14

      I agree – compared to an identical Avios redemption (assuming no 2-4-1) the redemptions are still a good deal when you factor in the superior product and the chauffeur service. If you do a lot of long-haul flying for work and can get the 2-3x bonuses then you’ll do nicely.

      It has become less friendly to casual collectors post devaluation, especially as I doubt MBNA will be offering huge sign-up bonuses again post the new EU rules.

      I have 80,000 still to use and may try to do an Emirates First / EK Apartment First combo towards Christmas.

      • Muck says:

        9 Mar9 March 13:40

        Emirates or Etihad?

        • Rob says:

          9 Mar9 March 14:13

          Sorry, sloppy writing. My comment was about Etihad. The Emirates mention on the end was in relation to the fact that I’ve been thinking of doing an Emirates F review for the site and this would be a way of doing it.

    • James67 says:

      9 Mar9 March 13:10

      It’s great if you actually do a lot of flying with EY but many here, including Liz I believe, are collecting and flying on miles collected in other ways. In those circumstances it becomes a tall order to collect meaningful amounts of miles excepting MR and an etihad cc bonus from mbna. Still, in the absence of regular flights there is still ruch pickings for a one and done scenario depending on destination. Thrre is also thr oppottunity to buy up to 25% of miles which helps a lot.

      • Liz says:

        9 Mar9 March 19:03

        Think I’ll give it a miss for now – stick to USA flights for the next few years. Currently in Madrid – got upgraded our first night on our first free IHG night at the Intercontinental – got upgraded at the Holiday Inn to an executive suite for the next 3 nights and tomorrow night will complete my accelerate promotion netting me another 97k. Beginning to reap the rewards from all that spending and points saving last year. Thanks Rob and others!

• Lloyd says:

  9 Mar9 March 08:07

  From the MSE website:
  The current version of Supercard is closing on 7 June

  Supercard will close from 12.01am UK time on 7 June 2016 (so just after midnight, meaning you effectively can’t use it from the end of 6 June) so if you got a card as part of its pilot scheme launch last May, your card will no longer work after then. You’ll be sent an email on Tuesday night/Wednesday to alert you to the changes.

  However, Travelex has told us it will be relaunching the scheme later this summer, though the exact date is yet to be confirmed.

  Those who were part of the pilot scheme will get priority notice to sign up to the new scheme via an app download, but details of exactly how it’ll work have also yet to be confirmed. Once we know more, we’ll update this guide and tell you via our weekly email.

  The guide below was first written in May 2015 when the Supercard pilot launched, but we’ve kept it here for info.

  • Alan says:

    9 Mar9 March 08:28

    Yep, they sent an email out to existing customers yesterday. Interesting that they’re issuing new cards, but good to see the trial went well and will keep competition up on some fronts against Curve 🙂

    • Stuart_f says:

      9 Mar9 March 09:09

      This was covered in the comments on yesterday’s articles.

      • Alan says:

        9 Mar9 March 09:29

        I’m well aware of that!

    • RIccati says:

      9 Mar9 March 15:50

      It’s Curve that keeps it up!

• John says:

  9 Mar9 March 08:48

  Has anyone had success on redeeming Etihad miles on one of their partner airlines. Customer services seemed unaware of the existence of these partnerships. I eventually gave up and cashed the miles in.

  • Raffles says:

    9 Mar9 March 08:53

    I did an article on this once and reader feedback was that it was virtually impossible!

    • Andrew H says:

      9 Mar9 March 08:58

      How do you cash them in?

      • John says:

        9 Mar9 March 09:10

        Raffles did an article a little while back explaining the use of ‘PointsPay’. Fairly straight-forward albeit with a relatively poor value.

        • TimS says:

          9 Mar9 March 09:49

          They are easy to redeem via PointsPay (around 0.4p per point as I recall) and can also be redeemed for Amazon vouchers (for very slightly more value per point than PointsPay).

        • VP says:

          9 Mar9 March 11:42

          At 0.5p per point for Amazon it offers 25% more value as giftcard than PointsPay but you can get giftcard not just for Amazon but almost all major UK retailers (Boots, Sainsburys, Debenhams, Harrods, House of Fraser, Curries PC World etc.)

        • TimS says:

          9 Mar9 March 13:41

          It appears the rate has improved recently since I last redeemed for Amazon & PointsPay. (The point redemption rates fluctuate with exchange rates.)

          When I last redeemed the Amazon rate was £50 = 10915 points (45.8p/point) and PointsPay was 43.8p/point (plus 141 points loading fee per transaction).

          Therefore the “”cash” vs Amazon difference was around 4 or 5%.

          I can’t confirm the PointsPay rate at the moment as I don’t currently have any points to redeem but I assume it will have moved in line with the Amazon redemption rate at closer to 0.5p per point now.

        • TimS says:

          9 Mar9 March 13:42

          Sorry, crazy decimals there somehow!
          I meant 0.458p/point for Amazon & 0.438p/point for PointsPay when I last redeemed.

    • John says:

      9 Mar9 March 09:08

      Raffles, it wasn’t me being inept then !

  • e14 says:

    9 Mar9 March 09:09

    No problems redeeming on Jet, just call the Manchester call centre 0345 608 1255

    • Rob says:

      9 Mar9 March 12:16

      Jet is an Etihad equity partner though so you expect that to be OK.

  • Hingeless says:

    9 Mar9 March 11:01

    Yes, I booked 2 domestic Virgin Australia flights recently in business for about 50k of miles, great value.

  • Relaxo says:

    9 Mar9 March 19:07

    I Have just redeemed 2 flights on Air Serbia. Pretty good value Belgrade – LHR for 10K pts + £20 one way. Especially since BA dosent fly that route. However I had to call up Air Serbia directly to book. The Etihad centre was showing as no reward seat availability – in face the CSR dude didnt even know where Belgrade was!

• JamesWag says:

  9 Mar9 March 09:54

  Will the silver status be awarded if your flight is booked using points rather than cash ?

  I have about 145,000 Air Berlin points and fancy using them on Etihad rather than Air Berlin, now would be a good time if it qualifies however not guaranteed given the low 1,000 person availability anyway 🙁

  • Rob says:

    9 Mar9 March 12:15

    Unlikely, I guess, although the rules are not clear.

  • Axel Heyst says:

    9 Mar9 March 14:25

    I got my silver status awarded after an etihad guest redemption EDI – SIN using my Etihad Amex card in December

    I had to chase it up but it was awarded promptly after that.

    • Matthew says:

      10 Mar10 March 01:56

      I keep chasing this but to no avail. As everyone says, Etihad CS is pretty rubbish and they take weeks to reply to emails!

• Lee says:

  9 Mar9 March 10:34

  Anyone had any luck signing up with Etihad Guest via the link above, it keeps telling me the Mandatory fields haven’t been completed, despite me filling in all the boxes?

  • Steve says:

    9 Mar9 March 10:48

    I am having the same problems as Lee. It seems to be impossible to enrol with Etihad Guest as the online enrolment system keeps being rejected. There appears to be a problem with the password even though you follow their instructions. I have sent an email to customer services and hope to have a response soon.

  • TimS says:

    9 Mar9 March 10:50

    I managed it fine yesterday using my existing Etihad Guest account.

    Are you trying to create a new Etihad Guest account and a new Heinemann account or are you using an existing Etihad one?

    • Lee says:

      9 Mar9 March 11:00

      Trying to create as per the link above.

      The form is a right pain to fill in as well, insisting on some random password restrictions and that postcodes don’t have a space, etc…

      • TimS says:

        9 Mar9 March 11:09

        I didn’t have any issues yesterday. It allowed me a simple alphanumeric password (no capitals, no special characters).

        Requiring postcodes without spaces is, in my experience at least, quite common for non-UK companies.

  • Tony V says:

    9 Mar9 March 13:30

    Link doesn’t work for me either. I get the same error about filling in all mandatory fields which I did.

    • Dave says:

      9 Mar9 March 13:46

      Me too, error about mandatory fields.

      Incidentally, what sort of bizarre system insists that a number has to appear at one end (not both ends, mind) of your password?

      The BA website doesn’t seem so bad after all…

      • Federico says:

        10 Mar10 March 23:15

        Same problem here.
        I got the error message below despite duly completing all mandatory fields.

        Application not submitted.
        Your enrollment has not been successfully completed. Please complete all fields marked with an asterisk (*).

• Gordon says:

  9 Mar9 March 19:10

  Etihad’s customer service is terrible especially compared to the excellent on board product. It recently took them about 4 months to return miles from a cancelled rewards flight. On a more recent occasion i was offered some miles following feedback. Six weeks later they still havent been added to the account. If you ever have need to contact them keep all email receipts as i have been told on more than once occasion that they never received the original enquiry, despite having an automated receipt from them. As i say it such a pity because i have thoroughly enjoyed each flight i have had with them.

• paul says:

  9 Mar9 March 21:05

  Am I right in thinking I can fly from London to Hawaii in Business class for only 50,000 miles each way? If so, are these flights easy to find aa it sounds like an amazing price.

  • Rob says:

    9 Mar9 March 21:18

    Etihad has access to standard AA sAAver level availability, I think, so if you can see it on aa.com then you should be able to get Etihad to book it.

    • paul says:

      10 Mar10 March 09:18

      Am I correct about the amount of miles for that route?

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