How to turn spare Etihad points into actual cash

How to turn orphaned Etihad points into something of value

I ended up cancelling a regional Etihad flight and swapping to Qatar. The points I used for the Etihad flight have been refunded and now sit in my account. The problem is that they are about to expire. With no plans to fly with Etihad, I needed to find a way to use my points so I don’t lose them.

Ways to use Etihad points

If you happen to live in UAE, then there are some genuinely useful ways to use your Etihad points:

1. Transfer them to the SHARE programme, which means you can use your points at VOX cinemas, Carrefour, Majid Al Futtaim malls (including the Mall Of The Emirates) experiences like Ski Dubai, iFLY Dubai, Magic Planet and Little Explorers. 5 Etihad points transfer to 1 SHARE point. 10 SHARE points are worth 1 AED. That means my 40,188 points are worth 803AED, or £167.50. Working back that’s a rate of 2.4p per point, which is very healthy.
   
2. You can turn your points into ADNOC points for use on fuel or within their Oasis petrol stations. 1 Etihad point transfers to 20 ADNOC points. The value of those points is less clear – for example, you can use 750 points to get 50% off a pastry in their bakery or use 500 points to get 20% off a room rate at a Swissotel location.
   
3. You can transfer your Etihad points to Air Arabia points. This is a budget Middle Eastern carrier with a fleet of seventy-seven A32Xs and a number of different subsidiaries. One (“Air Arabia Abu Dhabi”) is focused on supporting Etihad’s routes. They do have some European routes (Warsaw, Vienna, Krakow) but none to the UK.
   
4. You can use your points to gain access to the First or Business Class lounges at Abu Dhabi Airport. This is based on whether space is available, and there is no reference to the number of points required.
   
5. You can use Etihad miles to pay for products via Etihad GuestPay. There’s a small number of online shops, none of which service the UK, Europe or the US at the moment, that allow you to use your Eithad points during the checkout process.
   
6. Etihad claims that you can use your miles to book hotels. The link on their site takes you to their holiday booking site, which allows you to earn miles on hotel bookings but not spend them. There’s a separate site for redeeming miles for hotels, but it has a holding page saying that it’s no longer in use.

If, like me, you don’t live in the UAE, then there are other options:

1. Etihad is not part of an airline alliance, but they do have code-shares on specific routes. As you would expect they tend to be non-competing. At the base of their Partners page it’s easy to explore the routes you could use points on. The “Flying To” input lists all the potential destinations from an airport, and those tagged with the Etihad tailfin icon are via Etihad, the rest are flights wholly or partly operated by partners.
   
   There are very few options from the UK to Europe. For example, flying from Manchester to Paris in (Euro) Business Class would cost 40,000 Etihad points and £215 in taxes. Amsterdam is listed, but despite trying a few different dates, no options were available. A partnership with TAP is listed but there are no Portugal flights available. There were no flight options from the UK to Germany, Spain or Italy.
   
2. Finally, there’s a way to turn Etihad points into cash. It’s not the best conversion rate, but if you’re unable to use your points for anything else AND they’re about to expire then it’ll return some of the value to you.
   

How to turn Etihad points into cash

Etihad has a service called the Etihad Guest Reward Card. It sounds like a credit card, but it’s actually a way to turn miles into cash that sits on a virtual Visa card. This card can be used anywhere that Visa is accepted, which is pretty much everywhere in the World. Although it’s a virtual card you can add it to a digital wallet, meaning you can use it in-store if they accept Apple Pay, Google Pay or similar.

This card allows you to:

• Turn Etihad points into a virtual Visa card that you can use to pay almost anywhere
• Add that card to Apple Pay, Google Pay or similar to use in-store
• No cost for the activation of the card, 165 miles “fee” each time you load the card
• Convert a minimum of £5 worth of Etihad points
• The maximum conversion appears to be £2,500
• When you load a virtual Visa card, you have to spend the money within 48hrs.
• Unspent funds are returned back to your Eithad account as points, minus the 165 miles fee.

Here’s how to get a Etihad Guest Reward Card

1. Visit the Etihad Rewards website.
2. Make sure you login on that first page. I moved through the steps below and it kept redirecting me to a login page, which then redirected me back to the main Etihad website.
3. Click the Reward Card option in the navigation at the top.
4. Click the “Get Your Free Card” in the header of the page.
5. You’ll be taken to a form, which will have some of the details pre-filled. It took me less than a minute to complete the remaining fields. Once completed, a code will be sent to you via SMS and/or email.

Despite the process requiring you to enter your address, you will not be sent a physical card. The Etihad Guest Reward Card is a virtual card. I can only guess that your address is needed to complete a Know Your Customer process, a requirement from Visa.

One slightly frustrating part of this process is that it takes “upto seven days” for Etihad to activate the virtual card. In reality it took four, but that still feels too long.

Once your card is activated, “loading” the card with cash is really easy. You choose an amount that starts out at a minimum of £5, and the maximum you can select appears to be an amount as close to the total points in your account as possible. This is a nice touch, as most people utilising this will want to convert as many points as they have.

After you select “Load Card” then you’ll be sent a confirmation code via SMS and email to confirm the transaction. When that’s been added, you’ll then be able to view the card number, CVV and expiry date so you can either buy something online, or add the card to your virtual wallet. The 48-hour clock then starts ticking on the card – you have to spend it, or it converts back to Etihad points at the end of the 48 hours.

There’s a link to request a further 24-hour extension if you need it.

Loading the card also gives you access to a support helpline, which appears to be located in Switzerland.

What does an Etihad point convert to?

The more points you add in each “load” then the lower the ratio of points to each £1. Converting points comes in between 2.25 and 1.93 in the examples above. Not a horrible rate, but utilising the points for travel would be more effective.