Etihad Guest kills its Royal Air Maroc mileage sweet spot
Etihad Guest quietly switched Royal Air Maroc partner awards from distance-based to per-segment pricing, confirmed around September 19, 2019. Connecting itineraries through Casablanca now cost roughly double in miles.
One of the aviation world’s better-kept secrets is dead. Royal Air Maroc redemptions through Etihad Guest — cheap business class connections routed through Casablanca — worked because distance-based partner pricing let the connecting segment ride nearly free. Etihad quietly flipped the switch to per-segment pricing around September 2019, confirmed publicly around September 19.
The math is brutal in its simplicity: price each segment separately and any itinerary with a connection now costs roughly double in miles. Since Casablanca connections were the entire point of the sweet spot, the sweet spot is the casualty.
No announcement, no transition window worth the name. Indian Etihad Guest holders who’d built their whole redemption strategy around this route found it gone with barely a warning email.
Our take: sweet spots die precisely because people use them, and partner-award charts are always the first thing an accountant circles. If you find an outsized redemption, book it — a sweet spot you’re “saving for later” is a sweet spot you’re donating back to the program. Etihad just ran the standard playbook: quietly, and on its own schedule.