I must commend the ME3 airlines for coming up with innovative ways and incentives to get passengers to book flights or opt for a voucher with bonus credits instead of getting a refund.
Etihad has just announced that when a passenger purchases an Etihad travel voucher they will receive 50% cash value off future travel. You can purchase an Etihad Travel Voucher between June 10 and 24 this year, and get 50 percent cash value off future travel from August 1 onwards.
These vouchers will be valid for two years. You can purchase a minimum amount of $250 upto a maximum of $65,000. The value of the purchased voucher plus 50 percent extra credit will be added to a Travel Bank account for future redemption on flights, upgrades and extras.
If you want to purchase the Etihad Travel Vouchers, you must first ensure you have an Etihad Guest account and call your local Etihad Airways Contact Centre.
This seems like a really good offer, so I called the Etihad Contact Centre for Canada and the wait time was around 5 minutes. The agent wasnt sure of the offer and had to refer to some documentation to answer how it works. After checking she explained that you can purchase these for a minimum of USD $250 upto a maximum of USD $65,000. I asked her to explain to me how it will work if I purchase vouchers for $10,000. She said, I will get $10,000 plus another $5000 credit in my account that I can use to purchase flights for myself and any family members or friends. Additionally, if I purchase any extras like seat assignment, excess baggage etc. using this credit, it will cost me only 50% of the fees that I would have normally incurred.
Now that one can redeem Aeroplan for Etihad flights, this can come in handy to book some side trips on Etihad using cash and using Aeroplan for long haul. I say this as you are limited to a stopover of 23hours and 59mins when booking through Aeroplan.
e.g. Book YYZ-AUH-BOM-AUH-YYZ using Aeroplan
and BOM-AUH-MLE-AUH-BOM using these vouchers.
So, lets hear it in the comments below if you will be taking advantage of this offer.
Written by Dominic Fernandes aka CanadaPointsGuy.
Image Photo by Kevin Hackert on Unsplash.