I mentioned last week that I am planning on heading to Toronto for the FIDE Chess Candidates 2024 Tournament. I had a bit of trouble finding flights there and back that were not exorbitantly expensive. I finally found a good way to get there (using Etihad Guest miles), but then I ended up with a weird situation when trying to book, so I was curious if anyone else had run into this.
Exploring Options To Get To Toronto
Because I’ll be in Cleveland already for the 2024 Eclipse, I need to fly from Cleveland to Toronto and then back home to Cincinnati after.
Here is the cash cost for just one leg booking through United (a roundtrip was about twice this much)
And here’s what it costs on the Air Canada site (though keep in mind that $390 is Canadian, so it is equivalent to USD$287, same as United)
Looking at the points cost, it was 20,000 United MileagePlus miles (again, one way)
Air Canada was a bit cheaper.
But then I used PointsYeah and it gave me another option – using Etihad Guest miles!
Using Etihad Guest Miles To Book Air Canada Flights
I’ve used Air Canada Aeroplan miles to fly on Etihad, so now it’s time to do it in reverse! So I logged in and sure enough, it was giving me a cost of 6,000 Etihad Guest miles plus a bit of cash (about USD$39 one way and USD$89 the other way)
The total for the 2 legs was 12,000 Etihad Guest miles plus USD$119.08
I transferred over miles from Capital One, but when I go to check out, it tells me that I need to use at least 18,617 miles (plus USD$59.54), or use 25,232 miles and no cash copay.
I don’t understand why I can’t pay 12,000 miles and the USD$119.08 that is quoted. I suppose that it’s fine in that it’s valuing the Etihad miles at around 1 cent per mile. So if it has to be that way, I will just pay that. I just don’t understand why this is, and I’m curious if anyone else has run into this?
Have you ever run into this issue when using Etihad Guest miles to make an award booking?
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
Yes, Etihad had a similar issue with MH few months ago when the integration wasn’t completed. It would show 0 miles + 289MYR to Tokyo in Business and 0 miles + 179MYR for economy but at checkout it would make it 60K miles for business and 40K for economy.