Thanks to a heads up from one of the awesome fans of the site over on facebook (you should ‘like’ Point Hacks if you haven’t done so already), there’s currently a 15% bonus running on all transfers over to Etihad Guest from Amex Membership Rewards until the end of the month. If you’re an Ascent Premium cardholder, i.e. with a Platinum Charge Card, you’ll get a 20% bonus.
If you’re logged in to your Amex account you can access the offer page here. It’s not an offer to take advantage of speculatively, but if you have a redemption on Etihad, then it’s as good a time as any to do the transfer.
Etihad allow you to buy up from 70% of the total points allowance of a reward in cash – i.e. you give 75% in points, and pay 25% in cash – the rates for this are pretty acceptable, especially if it gets you over the line to Business or First Class. Etihad redemptions on a point to point basis are acceptable value – definitely not badly priced. On Etihad Guest partners costs are generally a bit exorbitant so target Etihad operated flights and you can get some decent value.
But you’d be better off transferring the miles directly to Enrich from MR in this scenario.
Interesting that Etihad allowed Qantas metal / AA codeshare redemptions. This is definitely not allowed anymore?
I think it was unintentional to allow the codeshares, Etihad can now only access T class availability for economy which seems to be reserved for AA operated flights only. I tried to get them to book but no luck, still definitely does have some uses considering that AA don’t charge fuel surcharges
I missed that the Etihad table is return trip cost, in which case they are definitely comparable with MH. I’m looking at Business redemptions, and the numbers come in at 70k return for SYD-KUL on Etihad vs 34000 (when booked online with their discount) Enrich miles on Malaysian one way. So 68k with Enrich, 70k Etihad, both transfer out at 1:1 from Membership Rewards and the current Etihad transfer bonus means Etihad Guest comes out on top, otherwise it’s about even. MAS also charge taxes/fees, so if Etihad don’t for MAS redemptions, that would be a good win – no idea on that though without calling to check.
Don’t forget Etihad operate BNE-SIN if you don’t want to go to Abu Dhabi…