Matt S NYC
Level 2 Member
Recently, my wife and I booked 2 first class tickets from JFK to Maldives for early January, 2016. We are stuck in biz on the way back (the horror! 
), but I had intended to upgrade this to first as soon as it became available. Well today I got some good news and some bad news, although the good news far outweighs the bad. As of December 1, 2015, Etihad is changing the equipment on their JFK - AUH route to the A380, which has 9 first class apartments. I had been mildly annoyed (in the way only a snobbish MSer could be) that I would not be able to fly the A380 first apartments on my JFK-AUH flight, instead having to settle for Diamond First Class on the 777-300. Currently, Etihad only flys the A380 on its JFK-AUH route.
The bad news here is that there doesn't seem to be any availability at all to book first class space on the A380. That's right. I had to break it to my wife that we might get stuck in Etihad's business Studios on the way back, which look insanely nice for J. The good news is that despite there being no guest award availability for the apartments, there seems to be every indication that our previously booked award tickets in F for the 777-300 will be honored now that the equipment has changed.
So basically, I accidentally back-doored by wife and I into the A380 first class apartments, which Lucky claims is the the best hard product flown commercially in the sky (other than Etihad's A380 super-exclusive 3-room Residence Class.)
We paid 90k AA miles/pp for first on the outbound and 67.5k AA miles/pp for biz on the return. Despite potentially having to slum it in J on the way back due to high demand and low availability for the First Apartments product, I am ecstatic that we were so fortuitous on the outbound!
), but I had intended to upgrade this to first as soon as it became available. Well today I got some good news and some bad news, although the good news far outweighs the bad. As of December 1, 2015, Etihad is changing the equipment on their JFK - AUH route to the A380, which has 9 first class apartments. I had been mildly annoyed (in the way only a snobbish MSer could be) that I would not be able to fly the A380 first apartments on my JFK-AUH flight, instead having to settle for Diamond First Class on the 777-300. Currently, Etihad only flys the A380 on its JFK-AUH route.The bad news here is that there doesn't seem to be any availability at all to book first class space on the A380. That's right. I had to break it to my wife that we might get stuck in Etihad's business Studios on the way back, which look insanely nice for J. The good news is that despite there being no guest award availability for the apartments, there seems to be every indication that our previously booked award tickets in F for the 777-300 will be honored now that the equipment has changed.
So basically, I accidentally back-doored by wife and I into the A380 first class apartments, which Lucky claims is the the best hard product flown commercially in the sky (other than Etihad's A380 super-exclusive 3-room Residence Class.)
We paid 90k AA miles/pp for first on the outbound and 67.5k AA miles/pp for biz on the return. Despite potentially having to slum it in J on the way back due to high demand and low availability for the First Apartments product, I am ecstatic that we were so fortuitous on the outbound!
