Etihad Airways

I am extremely disappointed with Etihad Airways due to their misleading fare rules, lack of transparency, and poor customer service. I booked an Economy Deluxe fare for my return trip, specifically because it advertised free changes and cancellations. However, my experience has been nothing but a series of frustrating roadblocks and contradictions.

1. Unjust Fees and Misleading Policies:

When I attempted to change just the first leg of my flight (Mumbai to Bangalore), I was quoted a price higher than my original round-trip fare.
I was later told that the most restrictive fare rules apply to the entire ticket, despite paying extra for an Economy Deluxe fare, which explicitly includes free changes and cancellations.

2. Unacceptable Refund Offer:

I was offered a €35.41 refund (plus 2,259 miles) on a ticket I paid €747 for, which is completely unreasonable and unjustified.
Despite multiple requests, Etihad failed to provide the Terms & Conditions for my ticket, further raising concerns about transparency.

3. Wasted Time and Poor Support:

I spent over a week and engaged in six customer service chats, only to receive conflicting, incomplete, and often evasive responses.
I was told I couldn’t escalate my complaint until after I flew—an absurd policy that prevents customers from resolving urgent issues.

-Resolution I've been seeking:

*A full refund or fair compensation for the portion of the flight I cannot use.
*A correction of the unjust fees applied under misleading fare conditions.
*Transparency in fare rules to prevent other customers from facing this same issue.

Etihad Airways has failed to honor their fare conditions, wasted my time, and made the resolution process intentionally difficult. This is unacceptable for a premium airline, and I will be escalating this issue further with consumer protection authorities. I hope others take note of this experience before choosing to fly with Etihad.

I booked a roundtrip ticket from Dublin to Kolkata to Dublin. My flight to Kolkata was delayed in Dublin for around 1–1:30 hours. Cabin crew missed offering any tea or coffee. The flight was again delayed in Abu Dhabi. This time the cabin crew forgot to offer any dinner. The inflight entertainment screen was not working. 

My flight from Kolkata was delayed by almost 12 hours. I reached the airport at 6 p.m. on November 27th. Refreshment was given at 11 p.m. Shabby hotel (Krishna International) was provided in a slum area at 12:30 am. The hotel was unsafe and had no standards at all. We were asked to be picked up at 4 a.m. I stood outside the hotel for an hour because no transportation was available. In Abu Dhabi, our connecting flight was booked after almost 14 hours. We reached Abu Dhabi at 12:30. Refreshment was given at 5:30 pm. Hotel was provided at 7:30 pm. We were picked up at 11:30 for the onward flight. 

I had very important meetings in Dublin on November 28th, which I missed because of delay. I feel sick after 2 sleepless nights and a terrible experience with Etihad Airways

After posting my poor experience of flying with Etihad on this site on April 15th and on July 2nd 2024, I was shocked to see this site claims that my complaint has been resolved ... This is not true.
No wonder as of today 29 August 2024, Etihad scores 3.8 out of 5!
For a more accurate customer feedback score visit Trust Pilot where their feedback is completely different to here!

I'm an Etihad Guest member and have a Silver tier. As a ADCB Excellency bank client, I am entitled to a fast-track upgrade to Gold tier within two weeks of completing a roundtrip flight on Etihad that was paid using my ADCB Etihad Infinite credit card. I pay a fee of $720 to have the membership that makes me eligible for this tier upgrade.

Despite the fact that I met these criteria on 22 June already, my status has still not been upgraded. I have been unable to speak to anyone in the 'concerned department' because the call center stonewalls me. I've opened two cases with no response and ADCB hasn't had success either.

I am truly disappointed in the fact that Etihad is providing such poor service to loyalty members, and not meeting its legal obligations. It smells a lot like fraud to me.

I used Etihad for years but find their customer service to be extremely bad.

After posting my experience on here on 15th April of being sold a train ticket by an airline (if I want to arrive at my destination airport by train, I would go on a railway website).

I now fly Emirates. I have used Emirates twice now and will continue using them as they are far better than Etihad.

I tried many times to use their customer complaints link on their website but I could never send my complaint.

WE made the unfortunate mistake of booking a flight with Etihad Airways and it’s no one that we will ever make again. We were supposed to travel from London Heathrow Terminal 4 on 03/04/24 to Bangkok via Abu Dhabi. Our flight at 21.55 pulled away from the bridge but had to return around an hour later due to technical reasons. We had to stay overnight in a hotel provided by the airline but having been at the airport from 18.00 hrs we were offered no food or drink and the hotel said they could not provide any either. We returned to the airport for another flight at 07.30 04/04/24 (the next day) for a 10.30 am flight but this flight was delayed until 14.50. The flight arrived in Abu Dhabi around 00.51 (05/04/24) and from there we got told we had a 10-hour stopover so they took us to a hotel which we arrived at 03.30. We had to be at reception for 07.30 to return to the airport for a 10.25 flight. This flight was then delayed until 13.00 and we eventually arrived in Thailand at 00.06 on 06/04/24. We missed our Thai VietJet flight to Phuket on 05/04/24 and could not get another flight due to it being Thai New Year and everything was fully booked. I lost out on my Bangkok airport hotel and taxi to it from the airport on 04/04/24 Phuket hotel, My Phuket Hotel for 5 nights, car hire for our stay and extra car hire insurance as a top up to the included car hire insurance. I couldn’t cancel any of these items because the cancellation date had passed by the time we found out we were not going to be there. The whole holiday was a total disaster and Etihad airways are solely responsible for ruining our holiday. The response to our claim has been to just ignore us and they just don’t care at all. We fly this route every year often twice a year and have used many different Airlines including Qatar and Emirates, BA, Thai, and EVA to name a few and never had this trouble. Disgraceful treatment by an airline but now you know what to expect if things go wrong. THE PLANES ARE ALWAYS DELAYED AND WHEN THEY ARE... YOUR IN TROUBLE AND DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH FOR THE COMPENSATION UK AND EU LAW SAYS YOU ARE ENTITLED TO AS THEY DON'T CARE. £560 PER PERSON FOR DELAYS OVER 3 HOURS IS THE LAW. PLUS ALL OUR OTHER LOSSES TOO.

I booked a return flight from Abu Dhabi to Birmingham England on 7th April to 14th April 2024.

I was shocked to find out my return connection from Birmingham to London Heathrow was actually a TRAIN TICKET!

I called customer service and was told that although my TRAIN TICKET had a flight number, I had to take a train from Birmingham New Street at 0300am.

I had to cancel this and get a taxi as anyone who has experience of riding trains in the UK especially at night is exposing themselves to become a victim of crime... The taxi added an extra 1,000AED onto the cost of my journey.

I also paid an extra 240AED for reserved seating on the flight only to find out my purchased seat had been sold to someone else and I had to be seated elsewhere.

I have most my phone and contacted lost and found to create a ticket number. I can track my iPhone and I can see that my iPhone is at the airport till now and they are not answering their phone numbers and not replying to my email.
My complaint ticket number is V26779/24
Flight number is EY002 and my chair was 10F on November 18 from NY to Abu Dhabi.
I am a gold member on Etihad and I have been totally ignored! This is totally unacceptable. I left my phone number and my email and yet nothing happened.

On october 2, EY20 was delayed for 3 hours and my connecting flight EY663 was cancelled for operational reasons. When I landed in AUH, I had to queue for nearly an hour to find out that I was rebooked on EY661 Which was taking at 0920. This meant that I’d arrive over 7 hours late and I’d have to spend the night at AUH. Etihad refused to offer any accommodation despite CAA UK requiring it in such a case. I had to pay for my own accommodation at AUH terminal hotel. An airline cannot cancel a flight and expect a passenger to sleep on chairs over night.

Dear Sir

I had the worst experience in my life and believe me I cannot tolerate this at all for me and my kids .Can you imagine 12 hours in the airport with my kids and I lost my events scheduled - I lost my day. I was supposed to return on time for event . I lost a lot of food items brought for my relatives just because of the negligence of your staffs . Who is going to compensate for all this. I wanted really to take this to the social media, even though I never ever expected this in my life it had the most reputed Etihad airways is gonna do this and it’s really ruined my life and the life of my family .

I really wanted to take this legally because this is not a fair treatment to the passengers. OK I understand if it is a delay of two or three hours but waiting in the airport for more than 12 hours for God sake this is insane !

You did not even provide an accommodation for this as per the Airport rules. I have no words to express my sadness and I am very disappointed

I was traveling with my 2 year old kid .Incidents like this can happen but I wanted to get an explanation as to why there was no compensation or accommodation provided due to this incident . I have been living in UAE for more than 30 years and do you think I will ever travel with Etihad Again .