Book Etihad’s insane 1st-class apartments with miles

While many U.S. and European airlines have been shrinking their first-class cabins, or cutting them altogether, the three major Middle Eastern carriers—Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways—have been competing for premium passengers with increasingly decadent seats.

Back in 2014, Etihad took the lead when it unveiled both a three-room “Residence” and enormous first-class suites called “Apartments” that it began installing aboard its fleet of double-decker Airbus A380s.

The airline now operates aircraft featuring these seats on its long-haul routes from Abu Dhabi to New York JFK, London Heathrow, Melbourne, Mumbai, and Sydney. Each Etihad A380 has just a single Residence and nine Apartments. The Residence includes not only a private living room with a leather sofa, two dining tables (if you want company), and a 32-inch flatscreen entertainment system, but also a separate bedroom with a double bed and its own dedicated en suite lavatory complete with shower. Oh, and there’s also a Savoy-trained butler at your disposal for the flight. As for the relatively modest (by comparison) Apartments, they have Poltrona Frau leather armchairs, separate benches that fold out into extra-long twin-size beds, which the flight attendants will turn down for you, 24-inch flatscreens, personal minibars, and vanities stocked with Le Labo products. There is also a chef on hand to make sure that your glass of Bollinger Grande Année Champagne never goes empty, and to whip up anything from the menu at any time during the flight.

One-way flights aboard the Residence will run you anywhere from $5,000 on the three-hour route from Abu Dhabi to Mumbai to about $32,000 for the 14-hour flight to New York. The same flights in an Apartment run $960 and $8,400, respectively. For savvy fliers, there are ways to use airline miles to book both incredible seats. First off, you have to have the miles. Lots and lots of them — but not necessarily Etihad Guest miles. Because of Etihad’s non-alliance partnerships, fliers generally have two other good options for booking Etihad’s first-class awards: American Airlines AAdvantage miles, and All Nippon Airways (ANA) Mileage Club miles.

Fliers might also consider using miles from two of Etihad’s other airline partners: Korean Air and Virgin Australia. However, there are restrictions to both that make it a challenge. Membership in Virgin Australia’s Velocity Rewards program is restricted to residents of Australia and the surrounding region, for example. Korean Air’s SkyPass mileage program also has more significant hurdles, and often requires multiple phone calls. In any case, note that if you want to book an award in the Residence, as opposed to the apartments, you can only do so using Etihad Guest miles, not partner miles. Okay, now you’ve actually got to find those Etihad award flights. The easiest way is via Etihad’s own award search page. Input your desired route, dates, and class of service. That will pull up results for a week at a time.

The award levels you’re looking for will be under the columns for “The Residence,” or under “Guest First” for Apartments, since that is the “saver” level at which the lowest number of miles are required for awards. Guest First space is also bookable using miles from Etihad’s airline partners like American and ANA (or Korean or Virgin Australia) — but you’ll need to call the other airline's agent to pull up the specific flights you found. They should be able to see them in their systems and book the awards for you. Just beware when searching for award availability: Etihad also uses other types of aircraft on many of these routes, such as the Boeing 777-300ER, which do not have the Residence or Apartments onboard. So be sure to verify the aircraft type before redeeming your miles.

Etihad’s Guest mileage program is now a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest. So even if you do not fly Etihad or accrue miles with its frequentflier program, you can simply set up an Etihad mileage account and transfer points from any of those three programs to it to book awards.

The transfer ratio of points from Amex and Citi is 1:1. However, Citi has offered transfer bonuses of 25 percent, and Amex offered a 30 per cent transfer bonus for a limited time, so you might be able to get more miles for your points at various times.

Business owners and corporate executives can rack up hundreds of thousands of points every year by putting business expenses on a pointsearning credit card