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

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!

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How to earn Etihad Guest miles from UK credit cards (April 2024)

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.

Cards earning Membership Rewards points include:

• 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 four free airport lounge passes.

• The Platinum Card from American Express (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 40,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 40,000 Etihad Guest miles.

• American Express Rewards credit card (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 10,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 10,000 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.