In February, Etihad Airways announced major changes to its frequent flyer program. Most of the Etihad Guest changes are due to take effect on Saturday, 1 June 2024.
We’ve covered the program changes in a previous article. But I think it’s worth drawing extra attention to one very negative change that is likely to catch a lot of members by surprise. If you currently have miles sitting in an Etihad Guest account, you might need to take action now to avoid losing them next week!
Etihad Guest will change its mileage expiration policy on 1 June 2024
You can prevent your Etihad Guest miles from expiring by maintaining activity in your account at least once every 18 months.
Currently, simply earning or redeeming at least one mile counts as activity for this purpose.
But from 1 June 2024, you must credit a flight to Etihad Guest at least once every 18 months to stop your miles expiring. Earning miles through non-air partners, buying miles or transferring points from a credit card will no longer count as account activity for this purpose.
On its webpage dedicated to the loyalty program relaunch, Etihad mentions this change under the “Rewarding you further” subheading.
If you then scroll down to read the “Common questions”, these FAQs also appear when clicking on “Etihad Guest Miles”:
2) Are there any changes to the validity of my Etihad Guest Miles?
Etihad Guest Miles will continue to remain valid for a period of 18 months. Your Etihad Guest Miles balance will continue to be extended when you fly with us or any of our partner airlines.
The Etihad Guest Miles of Platinum members won’t expire as long as the Platinum Tier Status is maintained.
3) What impact do these changes have on the expiration of current Etihad Guest Miles balances?
There will be no impact on your Etihad Guest Miles balance. However, from June you will be required to have at least one flight activity to extend the validity of your Guest Miles for another 18 months.
But Etihad hasn’t exactly gone out of its way to highlight this upcoming change to members. As an Etihad Guest member, I don’t recall receiving any communication yet from Etihad with clear information about how my miles will be impacted.
Australian Frequent Flyer sought further clarification from Etihad on what members will need to do going forward to stop their miles expiring. The airline told us that any flight activity where you earn or burn at least one mile would extend the balance of members’ miles by another 18 months. Based on that information, in theory, redeeming miles to fly with an Etihad partner airline should also count.
Will this apply retrospectively?
Although I redeemed Etihad miles for some flights last year, I have not credited a flight to Etihad Guest in the last 18 months.
When I log into my Etihad Guest account, it shows an expiry date for my miles in 2025. But the change hasn’t come into effect yet, so this date could change. The concerning thing is that the new policy could apply retrospectively.
I would like to know whether my miles will expire next week, if I don’t use them first. So I called the Etihad Guest customer service hotline to ask. The agent didn’t seem to have any information and just advised me to watch for an announcement after 1 June. By this point, my miles may have already expired if this policy is applied retrospectively.
Australian Frequent Flyer specifically asked Etihad directly whether a member’s miles would expire instantly on 1 June 2024 if they hadn’t flown with Etihad or a partner airline in the previous 18 months, or whether there would be a grace period before the new policy took effect. This is the reply we received:
Until 31 May any earn or burn activity will extend their Etihad Guest Miles – from 01 June only flight activity will count towards extending.
So far, Etihad hasn’t released further details. So, it’s still not really clear whether Etihad plans to use this new policy to wipe the balances of accounts without recent flight activity on 1 June.
Hertz did something similar with its loyalty program last year – although Hertz didn’t even bother giving its members a heads-up that anything was about to change.
Unfortunately, Etihad has form with trying to hide negative changes to its program. On 22 February 2024, Etihad Guest increased the number of miles needed to book a Business Class ticket from Melbourne or Sydney to Abu Dhabi. It then announced on 29 February that it had reduced the number of miles needed to book a ticket on many routes, while making no changes to the pricing of its Australian routes. But in claiming this, Etihad was cheekily comparing the 29 February prices to the 22 February prices. The pricing had been different on 21 February…
How to spend your Etihad Guest miles
We’ll find out next week what Etihad will do. But just in case, you may wish to redeem your miles before then!
The good news is that it’s fairly easy to redeem your Etihad Guest miles. As well as booking Etihad flights, you can redeem for flights with around 20 partner airlines including Virgin Australia. On routes like Sydney-Melbourne, Virgin Australia Economy flights cost around 6,000 Etihad Guest miles + taxes & charges.
See our guide to redeeming Etihad Guest miles for more ideas.
