ETIHAD - AA Partner

[donkeykong]

booked 2 Etihad 1st class on their A380 from Abu Dhabi to Melbourne, then business from Melb to Sydney, all for 120k (60k each), for start of July next year.
This was done in less than 10mins to the Aussie line.

 

[noviceFF]

Looking at SYD-AUH. Not much F's for A380. Is there a significant difference between J on A380 to F on 77W?

 

[Digger11]

Good work Donkey. Did u find availability online somewhere? or just rang AA in hope?

cheers

 

[donkeykong]

Look at the Etihad website, you dont even need to be a member to check availability through them.
After finding which dates has availability I then called AA.
I then asked AA if they could add Melb-Syd connection, and that was done pretty easily too.

 

[Digger11]

Thanks Donkey, good advice.
BTW, you should cancel the Syd-Mel leg as it is a lot nicer down here . We have F1 GP and MotoGP and Boxing Day Test and Grand Slam tennis and Melbourne Cup and 4530 other great things to do. I hear that you have a nice bridge and a good place for Opera singers. But im getting a bit off topic now.
All in jest....

 

[RooFlyer]

OMATA has written about EY guest availability via AA, with an interesting conclusion!

(I really wish he wouldn't tell all and sundry about such things, though )

 

[boomy]

OMATA has written about EY guest availability via AA, with an interesting conclusion!

(I really wish he wouldn't tell all and sundry about such things, though )

Good to see EY didn't block the apartments.
Sure, there are pros and cons with revealing such info to everyone but not much time left to book "cheap" apartments so at this point we can use all the help we can get.

 

[Danger]

Are the First suites on the A340s the same as on the 777s?

 

[Croupier]

Yep same.
Etihad First Class Comparison: Old Versus New

 

[scottz95]

Looking at SYD-AUH. Not much F's for A380. Is there a significant difference between J on A380 to F on 77W?

Honestly, the hard product on A380 J is a little less private than F on their 77W/A340. The soft product is usually quite similar between the different units. Theres a slightly wider range of food and a slightly better booze selection in F but overall you wont miss out much. Plus, hit the Lobby on the A380 since its a shared F/J space and is a great place to just hang out or stretch your legs assuming you can walk straight after they liquor you up

 

[Lucas Groeneveld]

I'm liquidating AA miles at the moment, just made another combined F/J award for next year. It's been 'ticketing' for the past week though, apparently there's a backlog.

I too had issues with availability - the NA desk saw no seats available whereas the AU desk saw the same availability as the Etihad website.

 

[serfty]

I wonder if EY might be varying GDS availability between NA and SWP?

 

[Craigie]

As a point of interest.

Booked in F on SYD-AUH-LHR in a couple of weeks. The SYD-AUH is 77W and AUH-LHR is 380. I wanted the apartments the whole way but it was a last minute booking and I'll take what I'm given(checking availability everyday though, sometimes twice..). BUT yesterday morning I received an email from Etihad telling me I had been moved from the 8am AUH-LHR A380 to the 2:15am A340... Not what i wanted.. at all. Checked availability on the 8am flight on the Etihad website and it showed 0. Not to be defeated I put in a call to the AA Australian number and asked kindly to be put back on the 8am A380 service. There was silence as he attempted to do this for about a minute and i was concerned but then he came back on and said all was good and I have my original flights back.

Not sure why I was moved, zero availibility on the flight i was moved from but a call to AA yielded good results. I'll be watching this booking closely though.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Not sure why I was moved, zero availibility on the flight i was moved from but a call to AA yielded good results. I'll be watching this booking closely though.

Depends if you were proactively moved because of an intended cancellation or something? Do the other A380 flights around that time also show '0' availability, or is it just your flight? If just your flight, you might need to investigate. You might miss out on a seat outright if the A340 fills up too.

Did you call EY to ask why you were moved?

 

[Craigie]

Did you call EY to ask why you were moved?

Interesting, and concerning.

I didn't call Etihad because I thought considering AA were the issuing airline, I would have to start with them.

I have no idea why I was moved. All flights AUH-LHR on that day have 0 guest(award) availability. But there's still seats for sale.

But now that I've said all that, I think I should call Etihad to confirm the flights.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

Interesting, and concerning.

I didn't call Etihad because I thought considering AA were the issuing airline, I would have to start with them.

I have no idea why I was moved. All flights AUH-LHR on that day have 0 guest(award) availability. But there's still seats for sale.

But now that I've said all that, I think I should call Etihad to confirm the flights.

Agree in principle you normally need to contact the issuing airline to confirm changes/rearranges. But when trying to discover the root cause of an issue the operating airline is probably the best course of action.

 

[Craigie]

Agree in principle you normally need to contact the issuing airline to confirm changes/rearranges. But when trying to discover the root cause of an issue the operating airline is probably the best course of action.

Got in contact with Etihad. Weird explanation though. I started by telling him I had received an email detailing a change of my flights, I didn't tell him what had changed. He then said "ah yes Mr Craig, there was a schedule change and you've been put on a new flight. You were originally leaving at midnight (I never was) but now its been rescheduled to leave at 8am(my originally booked flight)"

So I confirmed the flight number to make sure and then he offered to send me a confirmation email (which I received immediately with the right details). He went on to tell me that he could see I'd reserved 4K for my seat but he could not get this reserved again. He said that nobody was able to reserve seats at all, the flight was blocked so I'd have to wait until I got to the airport.

That last part confused me, but I'm not sure what else to do as I have the electronic ticket receipt from Etihad with all the right details.

 

[Kangol]

He went on to tell me that he could see I'd reserved 4K for my seat but he could not get this reserved again. He said that nobody was able to reserve seats at all, the flight was blocked so I'd have to wait until I got to the airport.

That last part confused me, but I'm not sure what else to do as I have the electronic ticket receipt from Etihad with all the right details.

How To Select Etihad Seats Online - One Mile at a Time

FWIW I have done this successfully.

 

[Craigie]

How To Select Etihad Seats Online - One Mile at a Time

FWIW I have done this successfully.

Thanks Kangol. I had successfully selected seats online prior to this and I still can for the SYD-AUH leg but the second flight I get an error "

We are sorry. You cannot select a seat for this flight now. A seat may be assigned to you upon check-in."

​

Needless to say I'll keep trying.

 

[Danger]

I've been ticketed PER-x-SYD-AUH on the one ticket. I'm taking the overnight flight from Perth and the A380 circa 9.45pm departure to AUH. Given it's the one ticket I assume there should be no issue with Qantas checking my bag through all the way to AUH and issuing me a boarding pass?

Qantas had no problem checking my bag through from Perth all the way to Abu Dhabi but the agent could not issue me with a boarding pass. However, I was able to check-in online and print a boarding pass and headed airside at T1 about 8am.