So Etihad's New A380 The Residence with 3 rooms and private shower, IS available as an award, using Etihad Guest miles. I stand corrected, since previously Etihad management seemed to indicate The Residence would not be released as an award.
The price? A cool 2,332,728 Etihad Guest Miles from Abu Dhabi AUH to London LHR, or 2,356,343 Etihad Guest Miles from London to Abu Dhabi. It's seems a little strange that the shorter, London to Abu Dhabi flight (which is 6 hours 50 minutes) costs 23,615 more miles. And gotta love the precision of these award amounts: not 2,300,000, but 2,332,728 🙂
So assuming you don't have over 2 million Etihad Guest Miles lying around, you can have fun saving SPG points, which at least transfer 1:1 to Etihad, with a 25% bonus of 5000 miles when transferring in increments of 20,000 miles. See SPG Airline Partners: Transfer Starpoints Into Miles
In order to get the bonus, you can transfer a maximum of 60,000 SPG points per day, which would become 75,000 Etihad Guest miles. At that rate, it will take over a month (32 days) to transfer SPG points…that is, if you just happen to have 1.87 Million SPG points lying around.
More seriously, this would be a horrible redemption value, at 1.1 cents per SPG point. Although if you really want the experience, the price of 77,200 AED (about $21,000) is quite a sum–you may as well fly private (although how many charters include a shower?).
What would you do with 1.9 million Starpoints, if you had them?
Related Posts
Etihad A380 The Residence and First Apartments
Need Award Booking Help? Our fee is as low as $75 per ticket if you book your hotel through us.
If you enjoyed this, join 100,000+ readers: please follow TravelSort on Twitter or like us on Facebook to be alerted to new posts.
Become a TravelSort Client and Book Your Hotel with Virtuoso or Four Seasons Preferred VIP Amenities!
Photos: Etihad Airways