Etihad has announced that they plan to increase capacity on their JFK-AUH flight by replacing the current A340-500 aircraft on the route with a B777-300ER. The B777-300ER will have a total of 328 seats with eight in Diamond First, 40 in Pearl Business, and 280 in Coral Economy class. The current A340-500 has 240 seats, 12 in first, 28 in business, and 200 in economy.

New York was our first point of entry into America and we have seen it continue to grow year-on-year, strengthened by our relationship with American Airlines. Beyond our direct daily services to New York, Chicago and recently-launched Washington, D.C., our partnership with American Airlines allows us to codeshare and connect our guests to more than 65 cities across the U.S.

The swap will bring wifi service to the route with a cost of $11.95 per hour or $21.95 for 24 hours, though wifi is complimentary in Diamond First.

Etihad has very generous first and business class award space as well as outstanding service. I recently was able to secure two tickets in first for a trip to the Maldives in December (part of the plan to burn my HHonors points before the devaluation) using my AA miles. Here’s a refresher on the current AA & ANA redemption options for Etihad:

American – Awards to the UAE fall under American’s Indian Subcontinent / Middle East category and cost 90k for economy, 135k for business, and 180k for first roundtrip.  For those of you who also booked one of the Hilton Maldives properties prior to the Hilton devaluation, the Maldives falls under the same category and won’t cost you any additional points. However, remember that due to AA’s rules, Etihad must sell a published fare between the city pairs that you intend to travel between. What this means is that a JFK-MLE award will work as Etihad sells fares between these two cities. However, a BOS-MLE award will price as two separate awards, as Etihad does not publish a fare between Boston and the Maldives.

ANA – ANA utilizes a distance based award chart which works to your advantage when simply flying from New York or Toronto to Abu Dhabi, but will cost you a few additional miles if you intend to connect to the Maldives or fly on Etihad’s other North American flights from Chicago, DC, or Toronto.

With the New York (JFK) and Toronto (YYZ) flights, you’ll just squeeze in at under 14,000 miles and will be able to book the roundtrip award at 60k for economy, 90k for business, and 140k for first. However, adding in a Maldives leg or flying in from Chicago or DC (just misses it at 7088 each way) will bring you to the next award level and will cost 65k for economy, 105k for business, and 160k for first. You can check distances using the Great Circle Mapper here.
Remember, you can earn ANA points via transfers from American Express Membership Rewards (around a 3 day delay) or via SPG transfers. Unfortunately, ANA now imposes fuel surcharges on all partners besides US Airways and they are extremely high for Etihad First and Business. AA is surely the better option.

Planning a stopover in the UAE? See this recent story from the AP - Bikini ban: Emirate sets fines for skimpy swimwear – Fines imposed for bikinis and skimpy swimwear at some UAE beaches

IdeaWorks has once again released their annual Switchfly Reward Seat Availability rankings and Delta is once again at the very bottom of the list, though this year they are joined by US Airways in a two-way tie. As per the press release:

Air Berlin, Southwest, and Virgin Australia placed in the top 6 for the 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 editions of the reward survey. For 2013 Air Berlin, GOL, and Southwest share first place with outstanding 100% scores, with every flight queried in the survey providing reward seats. The list of carriers was expanded to 25 for 2013 with the addition of Air Asia, Air China, and AviancaTaca. The largest year-over-year improvement were registered by global players Air France/KLM (up 22.2 points) and Emirates Airlines (up 12.1 points). AirTran Airways (a unit of Southwest) continued upward movement with a 7.9 point increase and a nearly 50 point increase since 2011. Comparing total average result for the same 22 airlines included in the 2012 and 2013 surveys reveals a minor half point drop for 2013. Thus, overall reward availability is largely unchanged for the global airline industry.Continuing last year’s theme, survey findings indicate frequent fliers are better served by the reward programs offered by value-oriented airlines. The average among the seven value- oriented airlines in the survey was 96% which is up from the 2012 result of 93.5%. The other more traditional carriers in the survey group registered 61.5% which is slightly lower than the 2012 average of 62.9%.

In terms of when to find the best availability, the survey does confirm what many of us already know.  Legacy carriers release more award seats as the travel date gets closer and last minute travelers may have a much higher chance of snagging their ideal award if they can wait until a few days or weeks before departure.

Now, as Gary likes to rightly point out each year, the results are completely flawed! They do NOT take into account the value of each individual award (a short hop on Southwest surely can’t be compared to an international trip on AA) or the cost of acquiring miles in each program. They are also only reviewing online availability, which for a carrier like US means that they have a lower score than United, though they really have identical award space. With all that said, for their own metal awards, Delta probably truly does belong at the very bottom (even-though I’ve had some great recent luck with low level awards). Unfortunately for the general public (but good for us), the survey will once again be reported on the nightly newscasts and the advice given will be to focus on accumulating miles with the lost cost carriers… I’ll take United at 80% and AA at 48.6% any day over JetBlue at 88.6%.

These past few months Delta has had outstanding award availability to Australia with no fuel surcharges using their partner Virgin Australia. Several days per week I’ve been able to find at least one seat, but usually two, on the Brisbane (BNE) or Sydney (SYD) flights. The availability is still pretty good, but not as great as it was back in February and March…even though we are heading into winter in Australia. Anyway, a client yesterday asked about using his SkyMiles to fly on China Southern’s A380 from LA to Guangzhou (CAN), on to Ho Chi Minh (SGN) for a few days, and then connecting onwards to Melbourne (MEL). On the return, he wanted Virgin Australia from Sydney (SYD) to LAX. I was able to easily book all segments for 150,000 SkyMiles. We’ve known for sometime about the excellent China Southern availability to Australia via CAN, but I was really surprised by just how good the availability was from Ho Chi Minh to both Sydney and Melbourne. There were several days when there were 4 business and 4 economy tickets available on either flight with no fuel surcharges at all. This is in addition to China Southern having 4 business seats available several times per month on their LAX-CAN flight. This means you could potentially take an Asian / Australian vacation with a family of 4 using a LOW SkyMiles award! Availability on Vietnam and China Southern is easily viewable using Seth’s Wandering Aramean Travel Tools. Of course, don’t expect to be able to find any low level availability on Delta’s own LAX-SYD flight! The obvious warning here is that you will be spending a lot of time on the phone with Delta walking them through your exact flights and making sure they know that VN and CZ are Delta partners. Additionally, the seats on the A330 are NOT lie-flat. Product details here.  See the post below for tips and experiences on using SkyMiles on the CZ A380.

Now, Vietnam Airlines is reducing their route frequencies to both SYD and MEL for the winter, but they will likely go back up for the peak travel season as they did this year.

Unbelievably, it’s been a good few days for booking low level Delta awards. Just on Saturday, I was able to book a low level business award for two to Spain during the prime summer travel season.

Related -

• Easy Delta Awards to Australia? It is Possible, Confirmed for Dec-Jan in under 15 Mins!
• Using Delta SkyMiles on the China Southern A380 to BKK, SIN, and even the Maldives and Sydney…very good availability
• A Reader Award Report – China Southern to the Maldives using SkyMiles & Korean SkyPass
• 10K Women Compete to Become China Southern Flight Attendants…see it to believe it, a reality competition

My parents are excellent and diligent mileage students (hi guys ) and they fully support my “hobby”, so it’s nice when I’m able to find them the exact flights they are looking for. They aren’t very picky either, a Caribbean trip over winter break (fulfilled with Avios or AAdvantage miles) and a trip to Europe over the summer. In all honesty, they’d probably be fine with economy, but I like to treat them to a premium cabin when flying to Europe.

Prior to the Delta/Northwest merger, I had them both get two Northwest WorldPerks Visas and two Delta AMEX cards. They each had over 200K SkyMiles in their accounts post merger. They knew nothing of the SkyPesos title, but for them the miles haven’t lived up to the “peso” name. Granted, European trips originating from JFK without the need for a DL domestic connection make booking a bit easier. In any case, their luck has been incredible. Three years ago they flew on DL metal from JFK-FCO and VCE-JFK on low level business awards in August. The following year it was JFK-CDG, also on a low level business award on DL metal. This year, I didn’t have as high hopes for their planned trip to Spain. Their dates weren’t all that flexible (August 12-16th for departure for 9 or so days) and things have become a whole lot tighter with the essential loss of AF/KLM award space.

So it began, I searched one segment at a time, hoping for JFK-MAD (Madrid) on the way there and BCN (Barcelona) -JFK on the return. You can imagine my shock when the first date I checked, August 12th, showed two low level business seats on the direct flight. Had to be a mistake right? Nope, the space was actually there when I proceeded to the confirmation page! Next, could I find a return from BCN? Not even close. There were no business class flights available until the very end of August. I also tried AGP (Malaga), no low level space at all in business or coach. Unfortunately, a one-way award was out of the question as Delta still charges the full 100K. My next thought was to connect them in Dublin via a paid Aer Lingus or Ryanair flight. Dublin is sort of on the way and Delta has two flights per day from Dublin (plus US customs clearance). The DUB flights also usually have slightly better availability than most other European DL cities. Well, lucky enough, the first date I checked had two business seats available on the 2:15pm flight, allowing for sufficient time to connect from Spain. I then opened up another tab and tried to request both flights in a multi-city itinerary, success! Total booking time 35 minutes…shocking…WOW!

Is it perfect? No, but it’s close enough…especially for SkyMiles to Europe in the summer time.  My parents are very happy and excited and that’s all the counts. It’s also a great value considering the low value placed on SkyMiles. For me, the 50K each way is not the same as parting with 50K UA or AA miles which I value much higher. Next, on to the hotels…

*I should note that AirEuropa had availability (as they normally do) in both business and economy on the exact dates* You can read more about their flight service and allowable SkyMiles redemptions here.

Could it just be a typo? On the page for Air China’s latest Phoenix Miles promotion, they state the following:

Passengers flying in Q Class or above from Beijing to Dusseldorf, Paris, Frankfurt, New York, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Singapore, Hong Kong or Seoul on Air China qualify for 30% mileage bonus. Valid from May 1 to June 30, 2013. This arrangement will make you earn Air China mileage faster, and the mileage can be used to request award domestic travel on Air China and goods at Air China’s e-shop. Also, during the same period, PhoenixMiles members who use their accrued mileage to request award travel in Economy Class, Business Class and First Class on Air China from Beijing to Frankfurt, New York, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Singapore qualify for 85% discount in the mileage to be paid. Register on Air China’s PhoenixMiles website to benefit.

Now, could it possibly be a poor translation and they actually intended to say that you only have to pay 85% of the normal award amount (a 15% discount)? Who knows, but if we take them at their word, an 85% discount would require just 9,000 Phoenix Miles for economy, 15,000 Phoenix Miles for business, and only 21,750 Phoenix Miles for first. I haven’t yet had a chance today to experiment (hopefully during a late lunch), but please do report your results in the comments section!

Note that Air China is an SPG 1:1 transfer partner.

UPDATE - As expected, the offer was of course too good to be true. Turns out that this is a common way of advertising a (15%) discount.

Huge HT to Frequent Flyer Bonuses

Airline Route announced this morning that Asiana will begin 3-class B-777 service to JFK from July 22nd onwards. The 3-class 777-200ER aircraft will feature Asiana’s First Suite Class (FSC). FSC includes a completely private two-door suite, 32″ HD displays, private mini-bar, a 7 foot fully-flat bed, pajamas, and Bvlgari travel kit. You can check out the Asiana First Suite experience here.

So how is the award availability using United or US Airways miles? Excellent…if you are traveling alone! There is one seat available in first class on several dates in July and August and several days per week in September, October, and November. Of course, from ICN you can connect to destinations all over the Asia-Pacific region using Asiana or the other Star Alliance carriers.

Yesterday marked the beginning of Hawaiian’s New Zealand service via a nonstop flight from Honolulu to Auckland. The flight will have 3x weekly service this spring and summer before being upgraded to 4x weekly later this fall. So, how is the award availability using AA or DL miles? The short answer is that Economy is amazing (on American), though Business (two class First) is nearly impossible to find.

American – For 35k you can find good economy availability in April and May and outstanding availability in June, July, August, and September. Note that the majority of the economy availability below is for the direct HA flight, though a few of the dates have a Qantas connection via Sydney or Brisbane.

Business is a completely different story, I couldn’t find any availability on the direct flight in April, May, June, July, August, or September. The only available business class routing on any day was via a Qantas connection flight to Auckland.

So, if you can take the 9 hour flight in coach, you have a ton of availability to choose from but business at this point is not being released.

Delta – There were some rumors leading up to the launch that the Auckland flight would be included in Delta’s short list of flights that are available to book using SkyMilies. Currently, that includes inter-island flights and flights between HNL-MNL/SYD/PPT/PPG. After speaking with eight separate representatives, there’s no solid details on when or if the AKL flight will become available for SkyMiles redemption. Four representatives said that the flight was going to be bookable but wasn’t at this time, the other four had no idea that Hawaiian even operated a flight to Auckland. In any case, Delta agents can clearly not see HA T fares to AKL in addition to the normally blocked HNL-mainland and Japan/Korea flights.  I expect to have a firm answer from Delta some time tomorrow or early next week and will report back regarding future plans for AKL SkyMiles availablity.

Hawaiian – Hawaiian’s availability for their own HawaiianMiles members is excellent in economy at the SuperSaver 40k level, though business was generally only available at the Flex level of 130k instead of the 65k Saver level.

As I’ve mentioned before, BA Avios are of great value for their short haul redemption options. I was able to avoid the pending blizzard and escape to the Caribbean last minute using an AAdvantage MileSAAver award booked via British Airways Avios. The total cost was $47.50 in taxes and only 12,500 Avios points (instead of 17,500 AA miles) each way.

Remember, flights must have MileSAAver availability in order to be bookable for Avios redemptions. You can easily check award availability at AA.com before heading over to BA’s website for purchasing.

Check out the great JFK sunrise before the storm…

As I mentioned in my post last week, I’ve yet to book return flights from Asia for this Saturday. It’s been sort of fun to turn this into a game and see what pops up last minute. I was hoping for some Lufthansa 747-400/A380 first space to open via their hubs in Germany to NY, but there’s been nothing yet (just the A330). I have my alerts set up and I’m checking manually as well. I’ve also been monitoring Etihad/Qatar/Emirates space for Saturday. I think things will open up as we get closer but at this point I have three different itineraries on hold and or ticketed. I have AA miles, AMEX MR points, BA avios, Chase UR points, SPG points, and UA miles at my disposal. All itineraries are first but some of the connections are business on two-cabin aircraft (CX720, NH916, TG418). Which would you select? I still think other options will open up prior to Saturday, especially at the 48 hour mark…

Remember, you can still place flights on hold using United.com. Check out Gary’s post from back in June for further details.

#1 Cathay / AA – On hold until January 16th (Cathay First but long connections in HKG and LAX)

#2 Lufthansa – On hold until January 16th (FRA F Terminal, though not the 747/A380 flights)

#3 Lufthansa / ANA – Not on Hold

#4 Thai / ANA – Not on Hold

#5 Ethopian / Thai (A380) / ANA – On hold until January 16th  (Thai F Lounge & Thai F A380 with ANA F…but 7 hour 35 minute layover in Bangkok beginning at 12:25am and tight connect in NRT) 

In this post all the way back in June, I discussed JAL and Korean redemption options for Emirates First and Business seats on the A380 and how Alaska Airlines was also “coming on board with redemptions in late 2012″. Well, January 1st arrived and there was still no word from Alaska regarding their Emirates redemption chart. Finally, the chart was released last week and while the award pricing is pretty good, JAL distance-based redemptions are still your best best.

Remember, you can search for award availability by signing up for Skywards on the Emirate’s website or by checking on ExpertFlyer. Travel is restricted to North America and an Emirates destination in Africa, Asia, India, or the Middle East.There must be saver award space in order to redeem on Alaska, though I just ran a few dates in February, March, and April and there is excellent availability.

HT – ONE MILE AT A TIME

I unfortunately couldn’t make it to the LAX Frequent Traveler University last weekend, but I’ve spent the week avidly catching up on all the great presentations that I missed.  One of my favorites is a presentation from Scott at MileValue titled “Three Vacations on Two Awards: Free Oneways”. It provides a great summary by airline on how to add that free oneway trip to your award redemption. Even if you are already familiar with the amazing oneway concept, it’s a nice concise listing that you can download and keep handy. I haven’t booked myself an award this year without a free oneway…though I haven’t actually used them all. Warning, Scott cautions that his forthcoming blog posts will be more detailed, so look out for those as well.

Courtesy Kevin Mazur