You love a travel trick, I love a travel trick and even better than a complicated trick, is an easy one, allowing you to experience the most luxurious commercial cabin on earth, for just about exactly what that economy seat will usually run you. You read correctly, you can fly the best seat in the sky using these simple tricks instantly.
So First, Tell Me About This Apartment Thing…
Close your eyes, picture the best First Class bed you’ve ever seen, now add a separate place to sit and hang out, your own personal closable door, a huge bed, the finest champagne and over the top, bespoke meal service. Out of sight? Yeah right. You can do this for less than a grand or as little as 40,000 miles…
So Can I Really Fly It For Just 40,000 Miles? Where To?
For 40,000 miles you can fly from Abu Dhabi to Mumbai. It’s a short three hour and change flight and that’s not nearly enough time to soak in the bling. For just 62,500 miles, you can fly from London to Abu Dhabi and vice versa, logging seven hours or more of over the top luxury, fit for a king, or at least a prince. You can also do this from the US to Abu Dhabi, but it will run you 115,000 miles one way. Yikes! Now’s the part where I show you how to do either for even less miles, just 35,000 miles to Mumbai or 52,500 for London one way…
You Have My Attention, How Do We Do THIS?
To use the least amount of miles, getting the best rate, we’re using American Airlines miles to book travel on their partner Etihad. We’re doing this because surprisingly, American Airlines requires less miles for Etihad flights than Etihad does. Good to know, right? Ok, so first the obvious solution here is to have 40,000 or 62,500 American Airlines miles, the perfect number for a one way free flight of luxury ready to go. Don’t have that? Don’t worry, we can make those instantly, taking advantage of some clever bonuses and tricks. I really do mean instantly…
I Don’t Have Those Miles Laying Around. I Want Them Now!
If you don’t already have those miles no problem, we have a dealers choice for you. There are two really easy ways to grab these flights at this crazy deal price and no, it doesn’t involve signing up for a credit card and waiting for months. You can either buy American Airlines miles in an awesome sale going on right now, OR if you have some Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) points, you could simply transfer them to American miles, which you’ll then use to book flights on Etihad First Class Apartment. Dreamy. Easy. Instant.
I probably Need To Buy American Airlines Miles…
If you don’t have the miles no problem, you’ll just need to buy some from American Airlines. Fortunately there’s a sale going on, giving you bonus miles to help bring the cost down. Who doesn’t love a sale?! To buy, you’ll pay $981 (£674) for 45,000 or $1296 (£895) for 62,500. Purchases appear instantly, so you really can instantly have all the miles you need.
I have Starwood Preferred Guest Points, Can I Really Use Them?
Here’s the cool part. if you have Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) points: you get a 5,000 bonus for every 20,000 SPG points you transfer, so to book the Mumbai flight, you only need 35,000 SPG points, and for the London flight, only 52,500 SPG points. Woohoo! For round trip, just double these figures.
Ok, I Have The Miles Or I’ll Get The Miles, How Do I Book?
This is that slightly confusing bit, but I promise you can do it, it’s really not so bad. For now, forget about American Airlines. The first thing to do is to search on Etihad’s site using miles, you’ll find that right HERE. Once you’re there, you’re looking for “Guest Seat” availability in First Class on the A380. The confusing bit is that you can just ignore the amount of miles that Etihad says you need for a guest seat. Like I said early, American Airlines charges less miles to fly Etihad than Etihad does, so the number you see is irrelevant since you’re not using Etihad’s own miles. Weird right? Anyway, when you find “Guest Seat” availability, it means you found success! Now all you need to do is call American Airlines (this can’t be booked online), let them know you’re about to take an amazing flight and you’d like to use your miles and voila, you’re on an apartment on a plane…
Photos from: SvenLuckermans
