Etihad Airways First Class Review – SYD-AUH – Airbus A380-800

By

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January 18, 2018

As I was laying out this post and checking out the videos that I had shot on board, I had a HUGE smile on my face because it was just that AMAZING! Flying on the A380 has been a bucket list item for me ever since I saw a Discovery Channel documentary about the engineering behind this giant of the sky. I can’t find the original one that I watched all those years ago but if you are interested, National Geographic has a very good documentary about the A380 which I’ll post below.

I would love for you to join me as I walk through my experience aboard Etihad’s First Class Apartments on board the A380-800.

I’ll warn you, this is likely to be my longest review ever so if you don’t have the patience for it, you can watch my first impressions video below and see if you want more information.

Boarding

As soon as you approach the A380, you get a sense of wonder as you see how absolutely gigantic this plane is. I have to tell you I was incredibly excited to board as you can see from the picture below. I should say that as a blogger that has done a good amount of premium cabin travel, I have this nagging thought in my head on a lot of flights that says “act like you’ve been here before” so as to not seem overly excited about being on board.

That went out the window on this flight. I was so excited, it was like the first day of school, Christmas and a surprise birthday party all rolled into one.

I simply could not wait!

As soon as they announced boarding, the First Class passengers (there were only 3 of us) were invited to board first. As the First Class and Business Class cabin take up the entire top deck of the superjumbo, we had our own jetway that led to the upper deck. I know it’s a small thing but even walking up the incline towards the plane made me giddy!

Here’s a video of us boarding the plane. Please excuse the screeching alarm. For some reason, the airport personnel could not get the alarm to stop though they tried for about 10 minutes.

The Welcome

Having the experience to directly compare First and Business Class on both Cathay and Etihad the one easily quantifiable difference is the service and one on one attention in First Class. I’m sure it has a lot to do with the ratio of service staff to passengers but there is also a “these guys paid big bucks to be here” factor at play here.

That being said, we were treated to unbelievable service on board.

We had 4 people welcoming the two of us on board the A380 and they all spent a tremendous amount of time and energy making sure that we felt comfortable and that we had everything that we needed.

One glaring miss by Etihad was the fact that there were no pajamas for my 8-year-old daughter. I suspect that they do not make pajamas in her size but when I called into Etihad to inquire about it prior to the flight, the customer service rep advised that Etihad’s ground crew checks the flight manifest and the date of birth of the passengers to determine which pajamas to place on board, so I was hopeful.

I do not fault the cabin crew by any means and they were very accommodating to double and then triple check to see if there was any way to fulfill the request but unfortunately, there wasn’t.

Here’s what it’s like to be welcomed aboard the First Class Apartments.

What I very much appreciated about Etihad was our Cabin Manager’s ability to make my daughter feel welcome aboard tbe flight. Without any prompting, he made sure that she was provided with some coloring books, games and toys to keep her entertained for the flight. Here he is helping Sarei set up her stuffed animals for the flight.

The Cabin AKA The Apartment

You may be like me and have seen hundreds of pictures of the Etihad Apartments but they don’t prepare you for how large the cabin feels. When you step into your apartment, you are gobsmacked by the pure opulence.

I struggle to put into words how luxurious the space feels. It almost feels like the Cabin Manager should be tapping you on the shoulder and introducing you to the person you’ll be sharing your apartment with … it’s just that big.

The seat itself is 29.5″ wide which isn’t as wide at Cathay’s First Class seat but it is plenty big, especially if you consider that you could fit a family of four on the bench seat across from the main seat.

There is definitely plenty of privacy in the suite just based on the size alone but you also have two doors that slide together to enclose the Apartment.

Within the Apartment, you are afforded a large 27-inch touchscreen television and a PSP styled remote control that you can use while seated in the armchair.

Just under the remote control, you have access to the headphone jack, an HDMI port if you want to display your own media and two USB charging ports.

I think it goes without saying but the seat pitch is generous … and yes, those are my new Allbird shoes which are AMAZING! A full review on those shoes will be upcoming in the next week or two.

Within the Apartment, you have access to a vanity and what is of interest here is that amenity kit, which is largely an empty bag. The idea is that you fill up your amenity kit with the lotions and potions that are within the vanity. Cool concept in my opinion. Might as well keep those items handy when you are using the vanity.

The Amenity Kit

I’m personally not a big fan of the bag that they provided in the amenity kit. If you follow my reviews, you’ll know that for me, the bag really is the only thing I really care about in the kit and unfortunately this one is fairly unremarkable in my humble opinion.

I’m afraid I can’t comment much about the quality of the products because I didn’t use them, though if I were to hazard a guess, I would assume they are very good.

One great thing about traveling in First Class is that you are almost always guaranteed pajamas. Etihad did not disappoint.

For some reason, the camera did some color correction and shows these pajamas as gray when in fact they are black … very odd.

Food and Drink

To me, premium cabins need to differentiate themselves in either the quality of the service or the quality of the food. Luckily, Etihad excels in both.

While Etihad does not serve Dom or Krug, I was presented with a 2004 Pol Roger Extra Cuvee de Reserve, a champagne that retails for about $90 a bottle. Etihad has never been known for stocking the highest quality champagne but it was quite good and quite highly ranked by many wine experts.

Etihad also does not serve caviar in First Class unless you fly in the Residence (maybe someday) so I was out of luck on that front.

For my first meal, I started with the Pea and Mint soup which sounded like a strange combination but it was actually very good and refreshing. I think I’ve mentioned this before but for some reason, soups are almost always well done on aircraft.

I’m not a huge fan of Indian food but I had read a ton of very good things about the Chicken Biryani so I needed to try it for myself. The chicken was incredibly moist and quite flavourful and the rice was perfectly cooked. Sarei had the same dish but asked for it to be served with lamb rather than chicken and the chef quite happily obliged. One of the perks of having a chef on board is that he can basically take almost any ingredient from any dish and substitute it or make a dish that isn’t even on the menu.

For dessert, I went with a passionfruit ice cream with a nice biscotti biscuit on top. It was delicious.

Overall, the meal was delicious, beautifully presented and quite filling. After the meal, I was ready to do some work online but unfortunately, the internet out of Sydney was incredibly spotty and unusable. So instead, I watched a movie and reflected on how lucky I was to have this experience.

After taking a nap, I was hungry so I ordered the lamb loin with potato gratin. It was so good that my daughter took over and ate most of it. As I was still hungry, I ordered the famous Etihad Steak Sandwich which featured red onion marmalade, cheese, mayo and wholegrain mustard. To be honest, the tanginess of the sauce didn’t quite do it for me but it was certainly very good.

The Bed

Oh my God … the bed. It’s ridiculously large and incredibly comfortable. I had set up my GoPro to record the change from the sofa to the bed but unfortunately, it was set to Photo so I got one really nice photo of the couch and no video of the change … sorry folks 🙁

That being said, I did take some photos of the bed when it’s in the single room configuration as well as when the divider is open between the two adjoining apartments.

A nice feature of the bed is that the TV slides out of the wall and gives you the ability to watch in bed. You’ll also notice a second remote control next to the bed so that you can control the TV from your lounging position in bed.

When the divider is open between the two suites, it feels as though you are in a king size bed!

Etihad leaves this nice little quote on your pillow that aptly described my experience aboard the plane.

As Sarei and I got ready for bed, I can tell you that we were both incredibly happy to be experiencing Etihad’s First Class Apartments.

The Shower

Ok. Let’s think about this logically.

Airlines have strict weight limitations that they must comply with in order to stay within the operating parameters of the aircraft. That’s why you have limitations on how much luggage you can bring aboard and financial disincentives to bring more than you’re allowed. As I understand it, calculating these weight restrictions is a complicated matter that if done incorrectly, could have dire outcomes in terms of being able to safely operate the aircraft.

So when you tell me that the aircraft you are on has the ability to haul around enough water to have up to 10 passengers in First Class shower for 5 minutes each … that’s just bonkers to me. The amount of space and weight that that much water takes makes the idea of showering in the air seem like pure insanity.

Showering on board a plane is something that very few people get the opportunity to do so when I booked this flight, it was what I thought would be the highlight of the trip.

I was not wrong.

You’ll get some sense of the excitement in the video below but what you might not get a sense of is how long I’ve been waiting for this moment.

Throughout the shower, I really had to pinch myself because I could not believe that this was actually happening.

Conclusion

When I cashed in 100,000 American Airlines miles and paid $86.94 in taxes, I had absolutely no buyer’s remorse because I knew that it was going to be the travel highlight of our entire trip. There have been many times in my life that I work myself into a frenzy and set very high expectations only to be let down one way or another but this was definitely not the case.

This was hands down, the best flight experience I have ever had in my life. The 14.5 hours in the air was way too short and while we only spent 3 hours slumbering, I wonder about what else I could have done instead of sleep. Unfortunately, I did not walk the length of the fuselage because I didn’t want to ruin the illusion that we were the only ones on the plane but it would be something I would do on the next go round.

We flew the Etihad A380 Business Studios from Abu Dhabi to New York and while the difference between First and Business Class was less staggering than our experience on Cathay Pacific, it was definitely there. I’ll have a full review of the Business Studios upcoming but on that flight, I did catch myself looking towards the front of the plane wondering why I didn’t book the Apartments again.

I am incredibly lucky to have experienced the Etihad Apartment and need to give Emirates First Class a shot to definitively decide on which is better. I chose Eithad because I believe that the cabin is much more elegant than the gaudiness of the Emirates cabin but I’m still curious as to what it’s like to fly Emirates.

I loved every second of my experience and strongly encourage you to try it for yourself.

How Quiet Are New Airplanes?

By

Jayce

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January 16, 2018

6

There is often a lot of talk about how great the new aircraft from Boeing and Airbus when it comes to passenger comfort. There’s a lot of talk about how these new aircraft are better because of how they humidify their air, have mood lighting to help with sleep and are much quieter than older sister aircraft.

On our Luxury Round-the-World trip, I had the unique opportunity to actually measure the noise in a lot of different aircraft so you can get a real-world understanding of how loud or quiet a particular aircraft is.

How Do We Measure Sound?

Sound is generally measured in decibels (dB) and decibels are measured on a logarithmic scale, which differs significantly from the linear scale that everyone is used to. On a linear scale, if you were to compare 10 centimeters to 20 centimeters, you would say that 20cm is twice as long. Not so on the logarithmic scale.

On the decibel scale, a difference of 10dB equates 100x, meaning if an airplane’s interior has a noise measurement of 70dB, it is twice as loud as an airplane with a measurement of 60dB, but a noise of 80dB is four times as loud as 60dB.

This can be confusing so I’ll leave this handy scale here to help you understand how dramatically different the noise in a cabin can be between an older aircraft and the newest aircraft out there, the A350 and the 787.

Keep this in mind because while the difference in decibels may seem small, the actual difference in “loudness” is quite significant.

For those that really want to understand how decibels are measured, I’ve found a very good video about it from Techquickie that should make this easier to understand.

Methodology

This is obviously not a perfect scientific experiment but I have tried to keep the variables as consistent as possible. Here are the variables I have tried to control for:

Use the same decibel measuring app (Sound Meter) with default settings
Measurement at cruising altitude and not when engines are at full throttle during takeoff
Handheld with the same grip
Use the average dB measurement for comparison
Measurements were taken from the First or Business Class Cabin

Results will definitely vary depending on the aircraft (what we are trying to measure) as well as the particular engine power that the pilot has decided to use on the route. I’m assuming altitude will also dictate how much engine power is required and thus affect noise so I will attempt to provide the altitude measurements for each flight as well. Another aspect that may dramatically affect the decibel rating is the age of the aircraft as every year that passes, newer technologies in sound absorption are implemented into planes so, in theory, the exact same model of aircraft from different years can have different decibel ratings. As such, I have provided the date of birth (DOB) of the aircraft.

Below are the details of the flights that we took:

YYC-SEA – Embraer 175

Airline: Alaska Airlines
Flight: AS2731
DOB: April 27, 2017
Altitude: 36,000 feet
Average Noise: 74 dB

The Embraer 175 is a regional jet that first started operating in 2004 and it is quite a loud aircraft. While it is definitely better for noise than turboprops, it is the loudest jet that I’ve flown.

SEA-LAX – Boeing 737-900

Airline: Alaska Airlines
Flight: AS416
DOB: May 19, 2015
Altitude: 35,000 feet
Average Noise: 68 dB

The 737-900 is the workhorse of Alaska Airlines and services most of its medium and intercontinental flights.

LAX-HKG – Boeing 777-300ER

Airline: Cathay Pacific
Flight: CX885
DOB: January 19, 2015
Altitude: 30,000 feet
Average Noise: 69 dB

Recently, Cathay Pacific has moved towards A350s as their long-haul aircraft of choice with the 777-300ERs still servicing their major routes. The 777-300ERs feature Cathay’s true First Class cabins and while they are relatively quiet, they are noticeably louder than the A350.

HKG-AKL – Airbus A350-900

Airline: Cathay Pacific
Flight: CX199
DOB: June 2, 2017
Altitude: 29,000 feet
Average Noise: 66 dB

The Airbus A350 is the newest commercial plane in the sky and heralded as the quietest. I was actually taken aback by how quiet the plane was. Even on takeoff with the engines at 100%, I was surprised at how easily I could hear people talking 3-5 rows back.

I can’t believe I’m saying this but you might not even need noise canceling headphones for this plane because it is whisper quiet (at least in comparison to other aircraft).

AKL-SYD – Boeing 787-900

Airline: LATAM
Flight: LA801
DOB: May 14, 2016
Altitude: 40,000 feet
Average Noise: 69 dB

The noise level of the 787-900 was surprisingly high for such a new plane and something that I was not expecting. Without doing much research on the subject, I expected the 787 to be very close to the A350 but it compares more noteably to the 777-300ER.

SYD-MEL – Airbus A330-200

Airline: Qantas Airlines
Flight: QF431
DOB: August 27. 2002
Altitude: 30,000 feet
Average Noise: 70 dB

The Airbus A330-200 was quite loud in my experience but it could have something to do with the age of the aircraft. At 15 years old, this aircraft was one of the oldest we flew and it was, unfortunately, the only A330 that we flew so I did not have the ability to figure out if the age of the aircraft played a contributing factor.

MEL-CNS – Boeing 737-800

Airline: Virgin Australia
Flight: VA1291
DOB: July 12, 2010
Altitude: 36,000 feet
Average Noise: 75 dB

This was certainly a surprise because it was the loudest plane that we flew, even louder than the small Embraer 175 that services regional flights. Add that to the fact that it isn’t even the oldest plane we flew, make this quite a surprising find.

CNS-BNE – Boeing 737-800

Airline: Qantas Airlines
Flight: QF709
DOB: October 15, 2011
Altitude: 39,000 feet
Average Noise: 72dB

These next two flights are interesting in that in comparison to the Virgin Australia flight on the same aircraft, the Qantas flights were 3 decibels quieter, which is a noticeable difference. Also of interest, the BNE-SYD flight featured an aircraft that was 3 years older than the one flown by Virgin Australia but was still quieter. This could perhaps indicate that Qantas spent more money on sound dampening than their competitors, Virgin Australia.

BNE-SYD – Boeing 737-800

Airline: Qantas Airlines
Flight: QF537
DOB: January 26, 2006
Altitude: 38,000 feet
Average Noise: 72dB

SYD-AUH – Airbus A380-800

Airline: Etihad
Flight: EY451
DOB: April 25, 2015
Altitude: 30,000 feet
Average Noise: 66dB

The A380 is an absolute triumph in human engineering and features a cabin that is as quiet as it’s sister aircraft, the A350. This was surprising to me as I expected the newer A350 to be at least 1-2 dB quieter than it’s big sister. I can tell you from experience that the A380 is an incredibly comfortable aircraft to fly and suffers from the same problem as the A350 … it might just be too quiet? Scratch that … this is how quiet planes should be … we’ve just been conditioned to accept that planes are loud.

AUH-JFK – Airbus A380-800

Airline: Etihad
Flight: EY101
DOB: April 13, 2016
Altitude: 32,000 feet
Average Noise: 66dB

Interestingly, this aircraft was born just 1 year after the one servicing our SYD-AUH flight and had the same sound dampening abilities. While I did not note the cabin we were in in the details, on the SYD-AUH flight was flew in First Class and on this flight we were in Business Class but it doesn’t seem to have made a difference even though Business Class is much closer to the engines.

JFK-SEA – Boeing 737-900

Airline: Alaska Airlines
Flight: AS7
DOB: June 29, 2015
Altitude: 32,000 feet
Average Noise: 68dB

The 737-900 was the same aircraft that was flown from SEA-LAX on our outbound and both birds were delivered within a month of each other. Additionally, they were manufactured for the same airline so it is unsurprising that the sound levels were identical.

SEA-YYC – Embraer 175

Airline: Alaska Airlines
Flight: AS2718
DOB: August 29, 2017
Altitude: 35,000 feet
Average Noise: 74dB

An interesting end to our trip in that we were bookended by the same aircraft, the Embraer 175. Both planes were birthed within 2 days of each other and cruised at virtually identical altitudes so it is unsurprising that their noise levels were identical.

Sortable Table

From my limited data and what may amount to be a rudimentary analysis, it seems as though aircraft type, rather than the date of manufacturer or altitude seems to determine how loud or quiet aircraft are.

One interesting item that was culled from the data is that the same aircraft, delivered to different airlines, can have a significantly different noise level as was the case for the 737-800s operated by Virgin Australia and Qantas. It would not be too far-fetched of an idea that some airlines choose to invest money into additional sound dampening from the manufacturer (in this case Boeing).

I am going to leave you with a sortable table so that you can perhaps play with the data and come up with some of your own interesting conclusions.

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Conclusion

I don’t know about you but I find it absolutely fascinating that once you get past things like the seat comfort, the food and the service levels of an aircraft, small things like how quiet the cabin is on an aircraft really can define your level of comfort. Going forward, I may just start tracking all my future flights and update the table so that you might find some patterns within the data.

I know that this is a pretty nerdy exercise but I hope you found it as interesting as I did. If you did, you might want to check out my Series on Close In Availability as we get into the guts of analytics by studying how airlines release award seats close to the date of travel.

H/T to Scott from Norebbo for his amazing plane illustrations.

Chase Marriott and Chase Amazon Card Are Going Away

By

Jayce

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January 15, 2018

13

Some very, very sad news out of the credit card world has been officially confirmed. Both the Chase Marriott and Chase Amazon card will be discontinued as of March 15th, 2018.

I have both of these cards and they have been my go-to cards when traveling because of their 0% foreign exchange fee. On our most recent round-the-world trip, I used the card whenever my US American Express Platinum (also 0% FX) card wasn’t accepted. All told, I put about $2,000 CAD on the card during our trip so it saved me $50 in fees.

What Do We Know?

While the letters that have been sent out to clients does not specifically spell it out, a representative at Chase I spoke to told me that Chase has had plans to exit the Canadian market for some time. This was predicated with Chase no longer accepting applications on either the Amazon or Marriott card back in September of this year. What is of interest is that the CSR mentioned that no other financial institution in Canada was interested in purchasing the portfolio, Scotiabank included. This is of interest because back in 2015, Scotiabank purchased Chase’s Mastercard portfolio.

Here’s the rest of what you need to know:

Both the Chase Amazon and Chase Marriott card will no longer function after March 15th, 2018
After March 15, 2018, you will not be able to enroll for a new online account to view your statement balances so if you have the card and haven’t set up your online profile, do it right away.
In the case of the Amazon card, if you have a rewards balance at the time your account is closed, you will receive a statement credit for the full amount of your rewards balance. You will receive a credit for the balance of your points value calculated on purchases made before March 15, 2018, at a conversion of $1 = 100 points. If you have between 1 and 100 points, then you will receive a credit for $1.
In the case of the Marriott card, your annual fee will be refunded to you based on when you were charged. For example, my annual fee was charged in October and I will have use of the card until March (5 months) so I will have 7 months returned to me. As a reminder, the Annual Fee for this card was $120 so I will receive $70 back ($120/12 * 7 = $70).

Apparently, the two big benefits outside of the no FX fees on the Marriott Visa, the 15 nights of elite stay credits toward Marriott status and the Free Night Certificate for Category 1-5 hotels remains intact, though the representative did not have any further information and instructed me to call Marriott Rewards for further clarification.

As you receive these benefits at the anniversary date (the date your annual fee is charged), I cannot see Chase or Marriott providing these benefits unless your anniversary date is between now and March 15th, 2018. I would suspect that if you have an anniversary date of April 1st, you may have a hard time collecting these two benefits.

If you want to call Marriott Rewards directly to ask about this, you can contact them at either 1-800-450-4442 or 1-866-705-6777.

Where Does That Leave Us?

Unfortunately, there is no card in Canada that does not charge foreign currency fees of 2.5%. What I hate about this is that they often bury that 2.5% fee within the exchange rate so the transparency of the whole thing is suspect.

You can do what I do and just simply use a US-based credit card as many of them do not charge FX fees. If you want to start your journey to US cards, take a read through my series on How to Get US Credit Cards.

The other alternative is the Rogers Platinum MasterCard that has a 4% cash back feature on foreign transactions. You still pay the 2.5% but because of the 4% cash back, you are actually ahead by 1.5%. I personally have not used the card and the details on how to use the “cash back” on the site leave a lot of questions to be answered but this may be your only Canadian option.

Thanks to PointsNerd reader, Brock, I have been informed of another card that has no FX fees and to make it even better, it has no annual fee! The card is by HomeTrust and it’s called the Preferred Visa and it actually comes with roadside assistance! This may be the perfect replacement for the Amazon card!

Conclusion

This is certainly a big body blow to Canadian card holders and has come on the heels of the Capital One Aspire Card no longer being available for application. I hope that a Canadian card issuer takes up the gauntlet and starts to make an appealing offer to the market.

The Dangers of the Frankenflight

By

Jayce

-

January 7, 2018

10

Trip Planning — couple planning honeymoon

Today was a bad day.

I’ve written extensively about how you can use your miles and points to leverage into amazing Business Class and First Class travel for over a year now. In that time, I have gone on some amazing trips and I’ve hopefully given you a glimpse into what’s possible. From fantastic food to showers at 32,000 feet, it can be simply devine but today … today was not one of those days.

As you probably know, we are wrapping up our luxury round-the-world trip and flying from Abu Dhabi (AUH) to New York (JFK) in Etihad’s Business Studio. That review is coming along with my review of the Etihad Apartments.

From there we were supposed to fly back from JFK to Vancouver (YVR) on Cathay Pacific First Class. If you recall, I was able to secure 3 First Class seats, which was quite a feat in of itself. From YVR we were going to take a quick Air Canada flight back to Calgary (YYC) and I gotta tell you, I was very much looking forward to seeing my dog again.

With this current trip, I constructed a Frankenflight by mixing multiple rewards into one trip. This provides you with a LOT of flexibility in your travel but opens you up to the potential of challenges if you misconnect.

And that’s exactly what happened.

For the record, nobody could have predicted this would have happened so it was almost impossible to plan for … well almost impossible.

What Happened?

The Bomb Cyclone happened. Prior to yesterday, I had no idea what a Bomb Cyclone was but now I am intimately familiar.

Our original itinerary had us into New York’s JFK at around 3:00 PM with our onward Cathay flight at 8:00 PM, leaving us 5 hours to make our connection. Plenty of time … or so I thought.

When we arrived at the Abu Dhabi airport 3.5 hours early, we had plenty of time to check out the airport and the Etihad Business Lounge but as we were checking in, the Duty Manager was going from agent to agent telling them to advise customers that the flight was delayed 13 hours … THIRTEEN HOURS?!?!?! Yes, 13 hours. This was by far the longest delay I have ever had to deal with and there was no reprise in sight.

The delay was because all New York airports were shut down thanks to this incredibly destructive weather pattern known as a Bomb Cyclone. In fact, there were over 4,000 flights outright canceled the day before, which leaves a huge backlog of passengers and flights trying to get home.

When I heard that the flight was delayed, I immediately sprung into action in order to find an alternative way home. I knew that there was a very strong possibility that we would misconnect with our Cathay flight as JFK was scheduled to reopen at 2AM EST with weather looking a lot more favorable for flights to arrive and depart on time. As the Cathay flight was coming from Hong Kong, in theory, there was very little chance that it would face any issues. If it was coming from HKG-JFK, it would have meant that they had flight clearance from the New York Port Authority and would have been in the queue for a gate assignment.

Etihad did a great job of making us comfortable and sent us in a limo (Mercedes Benz minivan) to the Marriott Al Forsan, which is an amazing property. This gave my wife and daughter some R&R time and me, some time to plot out our next move.

What Were Your Options?

To be honest, there weren’t a lot of options available to me, though I tried to piece together something for the entire day.

My first thought was that it made no sense to fly into New York because the rolling delays due to the shutdown of the airport would mean certain chaos at the airport with frustrated and angry people filling the airport demanding answers that reps almost certainly didn’t have.

While I did check Cathay availability for the next 3 days for the JFK-YVR route, there wasn’t a single seat available. Nothing for 3 straight days. This was true of every single airline that I looked at. I later found out through an Alaska rep that this is common practice in order to block off space for people that misconnected so they remove all inventory to accommodate those passengers, meaning if you are trying to find solutions on your own, you would be in for a bad time.

I checked all availability with Star Alliance Carriers and found the exact same result so rebooking myself was not going to be an option.

My next avenue was to see if Etihad was willing to fly us from Abu Dhabi to another North American city that they service directly. I wanted to avoid the Eastern Seaboard because they were similarly affected so my remaining options were Dallas, Chicago and Los Angeles. Dallas and Chicago showed no availability even for revenue seats for the next 2 days while flights to Los Angeles had some availability.

I first tried calling Etihad and dealt with reps that politely listened to my request and escalated the call to the ticketing agents. They were told that they needed to submit the request via email, which they did, and wait for a response. These reps promised a callback and unsurprisingly, none came for the entire day.

My next option was to jump in a cab back to the airport and deal with the Etihad staff there. I went directly to the Duty Manager with a couple of solutions in hopes that he could authorize a change in our flights. I had found a flight from Abu Dhabi to Frankfurt (FRA) on Etihad and then a codeshare flight from Frankfurt (FRA) directly to Calgary (YYC) on Air Canada/Lufthansa. The other alternative was to fly to Los Angeles (LAX) and then find out way home.

During my interactions with the Duty Manager, I was very polite and calm and explained the situation. Normally, this type of change would not be allowed without paying a change fee and a difference in fare but as this was an Irregular Operations (IRROP) situation so they have a bit more flexibility to accommodate abnormal change requests. Unfortunately even the Duty Manager could not unilaterally make the change as it had to go through Ticketing.

In my final hail Mary, I tried to see if they would put us on the same flight at a later date so that we could wait out the storm in 23˚C weather rather than -20˚C weather but alas, that was not possible either.

To their credit, the Etihad front desk staff did their best to convince the Ticketing department to make the change but in the end, they were unsuccessful as there were some difficult factors that they simply could not overcome.

The Challenges

The biggest challenge that Etihad faced was that the ticket that we were booked on was an American Airline award redemption. In normal situations, Etihad cannot make changes to the ticket, only American can. I knew that but was hoping that because of the IRROP, they had more flexibility.
While Etihad could have simply purchased a revenue ticket on our behalf, despite the fact that this was an American Airlines award ticket, they had no reason to. I later found out that the flight from AUH-LAX in Business Class would have cost 45,000 AED or about $15,000 CAD … each. As a non-statused Etihad member that is flying on an award ticket issued by a partner, it’s easy to see why they would have no inclination to make the change.
I had no onward connection past JFK on this award so Etihad’s only obligation was to get us to New York, something I was trying to avoid due to the expected gong show that would await us there. As the flight was rescheduled for later the same day, Etihad was fulfilling its obligation to us as ticket holders.
Etihad has no responsibility to ensure we connect to our Cathay flight, full stop. Cathay has no obligation to re-accommodate us because we would be considered no-shows if we didn’t make the flight.
No Canadian credit card that I know of provides flight delay insurance for award tickets. I had used my Capital One Aspire card for my American Airlines taxes and the terms and conditions on the card state that I am afforded flight delay insurance if the “full price of the ticket is paid on the card”. I am almost certain that paying the taxes does not qualify but I will still call in to see if I am afforded any coverage.
I had to deal with both Alaska Airlines and Aeroplan to try to cancel my connecting tickets and because Abu Dhabi is literally the other side of the world, time zones play a very large factor in what you can and can’t do. Both offices were shut down during the day in Abu Dhabi because it was late in the evening back in North America so I had to strategically structure my efforts first with Etihad and then with Alaska and Aeroplan later in the day.
Because JFK is a major airport for many airlines, everyone’s call centre was backed up dealing with this issue so hold times were incredibly long (30-60 minutes).
Here’s another kicker … the UAE does not allow VOIP calls so I had to make all my calls on my cell phone … not looking forward to that bill.

The Outcome

Alaska Airlines was showing availability from JFK-SEA-YYC on January 9^th, which was 4 days after we were supposed to get home but it was the first confirmable seats available. Unfortunately, the cost was ridiculously high at 30,000 Alaska Miles in Economy per person. I booked the seats because I needed a way home and the Alaska rep told me that in the event that something opens up earlier, I could call in and have them make the change for no additional cost due to the Travel Waiver that was provided due to the weather system.

I canceled my 3 Cathay Pacific First Class tickets and was refunded 35,000 points for each seat as well as the tax ($5.90 USD each).

My next call was to Aeroplan. I pleaded my case to cancel and refund the miles (15,000 Aeroplan x 3) and while Aeroplan has a Travel Waiver in place as well, the YVR-YYC flight was wholly unaffected by the storm on the Eastern Seaboard so they could not extend the waiver. Due to Aeroplan’s ridiculous fees to cancel or change a ticket, it was better for me to simply lose the points. It hurts but such is life.

In the end, we are staying in New York for 3 days (or less if something opens up) without winter wear but with the combination of car rentals, the Subway, family, and a credit card, I’m sure we’ll survive.

The Lessons Learned

Frankenflights are an excellent way to build yourself a round-the-world trip but it comes with risks. If I could have started over, I would have done two things differently. First off, I would have used my US credit cards as they apparently provided more robust flight delay and cancellation insurance, even for award redemptions. The second thing would be to take out a separate flight delay/cancellation insurance policy. I would have cost something like $100 but it would have been money well spent as it would have allowed us to purchase winter weather wear as well as pay for any hotel and food we would need in order to get through our time in New York.

Conclusion

Ultimately, we spend 15,000 fewer miles on the trip overall but have Economy Class tickets to get from JFK-SEA-YY rather than our Cathay Pacific First Class flight from JFK-YVR and our Air Canada Business Class seat from YVR-YYC (no biggie).

Would I book a Frankenflight again? Without hesitation but I would make a couple of smarter decisions.

I hope that this doesn’t dissuade you from booking a similar flight but provides you with a necessary cautionary tale so that you don’t face the same situation yourself. It was a once-in-a-lifetime type trip with a once-in-a-lifetime storm system thrown in for good measure so don’t be scared that the same thing will happen to you.