Etihad Airways: New York/Chicago – India. Less than $750. Roundtrip. All in.

Etihad Airways, the national carrier of the United Arab Emirates and rated a SkyTrax 4 Star Airline (The same ranking as British Airways, Air France, Emirates Airlines and a few others) is running an unannounced web only sale to India from their US gateways of New York and Chicago to many destinations in India for under $750. Ethihad is also an American Airlines mileage partner (see below about mileage earning). It is not even promoted on their website, but if you enter the destination, it will price out. We actually have flown Etihad in 2009 to Abu Dhabi and it is a better airline relative to most domestic airlines in terms of service and onboard product.

[Update 1 @ 7pm – looks like Etihad website is getting slammed. Reports of problems with search and credit card erroring out. Best credit card to use seems to be a Visa]

[Update 2 @ 12:30am 9/21 – appears to be gone]

Sample Fares:

New York (JFK) – Hyderabad (HYD) $750

New York (JFK) – Bangalore (BLR) $685

New York (JFK) – Mumbai (BOM) $647

New York (JFK) – Chennai (MAA) $710

New York (JFK) – Kochi (COK) $750

New York (JFK) – Trivandrum (TRV) $720

Other destinations in India should be around the same price!

Sample Date:

October 13th – 24th. Valid until July, 2012 for travel almost everyday.

Routing:

JFK/ORD – AUH (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates) – India – AUH – JFK/ORD

Mileage:

>17,000 Miles. However, the US – AUH portion are not mileage earning with AA, only the AUH – India portion. The best option for a family traveling together to maximize earning is to open an Etihad Family Account and put all miles in that. A family of 4 together would earn close to 70,000 miles, enough for a trip to Dubai or Abu Dhabi.