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American Express Membership Rewards is offering a new promotion giving cardmembers up to a 20% bonus when they transfer Membership Rewards points to Etihad Guest Miles. This promotion is valid for transfers through July 30, 2022.
This promotion seems to be targeted, and the only way to tell if you have been selected is to log in to your Membership Rewards account. A few data points indicate that the offer is also structured. Some people are targeted for a 20% bonus, others with a 15% bonus, and still others with a 10% bonus. In addition, some unfortunate members are not targeted at all.
Key Terms
- Receive up to a 20% bonus when you transfer American Express Membership Rewards to Etihad Guest.
- The offer is targeted. Log into your account to see what your promotion is.
- The promotion is valid for transfers through July 30, 2022, at 11:59 p.m. MT.
- The minimum transfer is 1,000 points
- You must be an Etihad Guest member to take part in the promotion.
- The promotion is hard coded in the transfer, and you will receive the miles plus your bonus percentage in one transaction.
Using Etihad Guest Miles
Etihad Guest is another one of those programs where you are much better off redeeming your miles for flights on partner airlines instead of Etihad flights. Most awards on Etihad flights are way overpriced. That being said, Etihad Guest offers some interesting sweet spots when you redeem for partners.
You can use Etihad Guest to book awards on its partner ANA. In fact, there is some excellent value to be had on transpacific awards on ANA in business class. Flights on ANA that are between 4,000 and 5,000 miles long will set you back just 54,000 Etihad Guest miles. Also, transferring points with the promotion would work out as 45k Membership Rewards points. The distance sweet spots would include routes like Seattle to Tokyo and Vancouver to Tokyo.
If you are heading to Europe from North America, redeem Etihad Guest miles for American Airlines awards at an outstanding value. One-way business class awards cost just 50,000 Etihad Guest miles. If you can find availability, first-class awards will set you back just 62,500 miles plus minimal taxes and fees.
With the promotion at a 20% bonus, it works out as 42k Membership Rewards for American Airlines business class or just 53k Membership Rewards points for first-class awards. That's an exceptional value!
Etihad Guest Expiration Policy
Etihad Guest miles do expire! Specifically, they will expire after 18 months of no qualifying activity for Bronze, Silver, and Gold members. As noted on the Etihad Etihad FAQs page, miles for these members are valid for 18 months. In addition, these miles are valid an additional 18 months with an eligible miles transaction.
In contrast, your Etihad Guest miles will never expire if you are an Etihad Guest Platinum member. There are a lot of ways that members can extend the validity of their mileage balance. These include earning, spending, and buying miles. However, its important to note that you can only extend your miles once every month.
Thankfully, U.S.-based members are able to transfer the following types of points to Etihad Guest to reset their mile expiration. In specific, American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One Miles, and Citi ThankYou Rewards all transfer within an hour at a ratio of 1:1. In addition, you can transfer 3:1 from Marriott Bonvoy (with a 5,000-mile bonus for each 20,000 miles received in your Etihad Guest account.)
Our Take
In conclusion, if you have been selected for the top end of this promotion (20%) and you are comfortable leveraging Etihad miles for their best value with partner awards, then this Etihad Guest transfer bonus can offer some fantastic value.
On the other hand, if you are not used to dealing with Etihad Guest and your travel plans don’t match up well, you are better off passing up on this offer.
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Thank you for this article; I was not aware of the 20% bonus offer. It would be amazing… if there were AA business class award flights available! We tried tonight to find award flights to Istanbul and CDG in October, which seems off-peak to me, but nada in terms of availability. Are there tricks to finding award tickets, or are there just too many people who got zillions of miles from CC offers (like me LOL)? Points inflation?
There are a few issues at play. The biggest is that AA retired a ton of aircraft during the pandemic and then counted on Boeing to deliver Dreamliners to help support schedule growth. And Boeing hasn’t delivered a single Dreamliner to any airline since May 2021. Plus everyone is hellbent on traveling now (including me) after limited travel the past couple of years. So, there’s a drastic lack of capacity right now. But don’t give up and stay as flexible as you can. AA will still open award space sometime.