My wife and I have been a Gold Etihad Guest members for several years. For much of that time we have been very loyal, flying with Etihad Airways throughout the world and travelled hundreds of thousands of kilometers.
My wife and I have discussed recently if it is worthwhile continuing to fly with Etihad. Etihad isn’t cheap although we very much enjoyed flying with them, mostly in business class. We have also had free access to business lounges and enjoyed good food and drinks.
There are many flight compare websites on the internet and we have found amazingly cheap flights.
We are about to fly to New Zealand again in several days time and I’ve purchased flights which are a fifth of the cost of an Etihad ticket. The flights we have chosen aren’t the cheapest. I have made our decision on price, airlines reputation, and reviews. The airlines we have chosen are very reputable airlines. We don’t need to a business lounge to enjoy good food and drinks. For your knowledge, the airlines I’m flying with in coming months are, Lufthansa, Swiss Airlines, Air New Zealand, KLM, and British Airways.
I hope you enjoyed reading this and give you thoughts about your future travel.
Etihad has one of the best business class and they are top rated. It will be hard to beat them. Turkish, Singapore, cathay and Emirates are also good. Otherwise the others will be disappointing. As for the membership each has its benefits but I haven’t been impressed by any loyalty cards.
@TheEagleEye vow, Etihad Golden Card member, you might have travelled a lot, I too have silver, yes I used to book my ticket 8 months ahead to get a cheap price from Etihad, mostly I used Etihad for India, Thailand due to perfect timing, recently I went to Europe, I don’t agree the price from Etihad, was very expensive, I experienced KLM, Turkish, Air France and Royal Jordanian, only Turkish Pegasus was worst, rest everything was fine. Sri Lankan was better too.
Hi @TheEagleEye , you are absolute right in what you write, nowadays things are changed quite a lot if we compare for example at just 10 years ago.
I’m often flying since more than 10 years for business (and pleasure!) and I used to be silver and gold member too of different alliances / airlines and it indeed might come handy for some services according the program: priority queues, lounge access, additional baggage, chauffeur service and so on.
You are right that Ethiad is a very expensive airline although with an amazing service, I use to fly for example Emirates when going down under to Australia & NZ and that’s aprox same level too with a great service compared to other airlines. However sometimes prices are bit “crazy” and I choose something else despite the loyalty, just like you did, for example Thai via Lufthansa from Europe is a great combination to fly there, at half price and with great service too.
10 years ago you would see really big differences between services and airlines, today with all those “low cost” options services are stripped down a lot also on major airlines and those ones which still left the best services are being differentiated with the highest prices of course. I find many people that are not very stick to the loyalty program but just at the best offer / best route … and some services (like you mention the business lounge) can be also now purchased almost everywhere with a single entry fee ;-).
What you have pointed out is a classic case of ‘asymmetric information’ by the Airline by dangling frequent flyer benefits, mileage and lounge services. There was a time when I was a frequent flyer and I too had fallen in the trap.
Everyone has his/her preference…and as you said, it is true things change continuously. Then I became a bit less diligent(do spend lots of time to find “reasonable tickets”) than before after having realized that there are not big difference among good airliners, like Singapore arlines, Korean Air, Asiana airlines, Cathay Pacific, … These days, I only focus not to take “notorious” airlines, specially in in-flight service. I won’t numerate here, but everyone might know those.
I am still loyal to top ranking service airliners, but who knows someday, the rank would be changed… still flying abroad makes me excited!
I am looking forward your new adventure in New Zealand.
hola @TheEagleEye comprendo lo que indicas, y estoy de acurdo contigo, de todas maneras creo que en ocasiones hay que hacer un balance de que conviene, en mi caso la aerolíneas que mas utilizo es “Aerolíneas Argentinas”, por dos motivos, uno son las millas, y los beneficios que me da en pase a ejecutivo en forma gratuita, cuando compre clase turista, y el otro son las millas de vuelo gratis, en estos momentos tengo millas gratis para ir a Europa ida y vuela, con lo cual en ocasiones los vuelos me salen gratis. Por otro lado esta aerolínea tiene convenios con la alianza Sky Team , con lo cual los vuelos y aerolíneas asociadas se multiplican. esta aerolínea es una aerolíneas de bandera, con lo cual es otro factor que para mi es importante, como sea son muchos factores y todos son validos, pero lo mas importante es VIAJAR, y en el camino divertirse jajaja, así que no importa como se vuele hay que hacerlo, buen viaje.
Thanks for your well explained reply @FaridTDF . I understand your thoughts and agree that frequent flyer membership does have some benefits, with partner airlines, and free flights.
I was just amazed in how much cheaper flights are now by using a flight compare site. I discovered that I could get a good trip using another airline than the one I use often. I calculated that all the perks don’t come free or discounted, as I was paying a premium price for it.
My Etihad Guest Gold card runs through to July 2020 and have many points on it to use up in that time.
Hi @TheEagleEye . Thanks for your sharing good ideas.
Law of competion prevails in the global market now. Therefore the concept of a loyal and/or disloyal customer seems to become classic. For the time being it’s very hard to find a bad airline. I rely on such factors as prestige, convenience, affordable fare and good service.
My daughter has been working at Eva Air as a stewardess with the regular route Ho Chi Minh City - Taipei - USA and vice versa. That’s one of the reasons why I become a frequent flyer of this airline. Next June my family will go to Los Angeles and San Francisco through Eva.
Hope you and your wife will be satisfied with the airline to be chosen.
Cordial
P.S. “To be or not to be, that’s the question”. Right away I think of the character of Prince Hamlet from Denmark who asked such question.
Airlineratings.com - the world’s best airline safety and product rating review website has announced its Top 20 Safest Airlines For 2018:
(In alphabetical order)
Air New Zealand
Alaska Airlines
All Nippon Airways
British Airways
Cathay Pacific Airways
Emirates
Etihad Airways
EVA Air
Finnair
Hawaiian Airlines
Japan Airlines
KLM
Lufthansa
Qantas
Royal Jordanian Airlines
Scandinavian Airline System
Singapore Airlines
Swiss
Virgin Atlantic
Virgin Australia
According to this website, these above airlines are standouts in the industry and are at the forefront of safety, innovation and launching of new aircraft.
Hope such information will help you choose most suitable airlines for your future travel.
Thanks @Anh1710 for the information. On my return to Prague in a few days, I’m flying Air New Zealand and Lufthansa which are on the list. In a month I’m going to UK and Ireland and flying KLM and British Airlines, which are also on the list.
Over the years I have flown on some airlines that aren’t on the list and found them very good also, such as Malaysia Airlines, Aeroflot, and Czech Airlines.
I’ve noticed that your post have a German language label, so I removed it. If you want to know more about the language labels I recommend you to read the article How do I find posts in my preferred language?.
