Recent airline news has altered future award redemption options to the Seychelles. In this post, I’ll cover ways to get to the Seychelles using Star Alliance members or member partners. Additional Star Alliance award flights to the Seychelles will open up with the recent news (via Lucky) that Ethiopian Airlines will join Star Alliance. Back in 2009, I redeemed 150,000 Delta SkyMiles on the Air France code share with Air Seychelles but this option will go away in early 2012.
We will likely return to the Seychelles so I’ve searched for other award flight options and posted the results below. Please leave a comment if there are other options and I will update the post.
Star Alliance Options To Seychelles
1) Ethiopian From ADD
- Ethiopian airlines is launching direct flights from ADD to SEZ and is a Star Alliance member
- They have a flight from IAD to ADD with a technical stop in Italy (apparently until they get the 787)
- You can redeem Star Alliance airline miles including United miles (award chart), US Airways (award chart) and ANA miles (award chart)
- The lowest mileage option I found from the USA is to use ANA’s distance based option to fly roundtrip from IAD to SEZ which requires only 90,000 using ANA miles in Business Class
- You can also fly one way to SEZ using United miles and then pick up an Air Seychelles flight to Mauritius or South Africa where you can redeem another one way on the return
2) Etihad From AUH
- Etihad flies direct from AUH to SEZ
- You can redeem ANA miles (award chart)
- Air New Zealand states that “members can earn and redeem rewards on Etihad Airways” but I wasn’t able to find Seychelles as a destination in the partner award chart)
3) Qatar From DOH
- Qatar flies direct from DOH to SEZ
- You can redeem BMI miles (partner award chart), United miles (partner award chart) and ANA miles (award chart)
4) Air Austral
- This airline is rumored to join Star Alliance in 2012
- They have recently announced flights to SEZ from Paris
Bottom Line
The news that Ethiopian has joined Star Alliance has opened up a new route to the Seychelles using Star Alliance airline miles. We enjoyed our trip to the Seychelles and will likely return again, but this time we will fly on an airline other than Air Seychelles.
Related Posts
Dela SkyMiles Award Ticket To Seychelles
How Delta Is Handling Cancelled Air Seychelles Award Flights
Hilton Seychelles – Mahe, Seychelles
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The Weekly Flyer writes about travel from a business traveler perspective. He travels the world every week accumulating points and miles along the way.
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Do you like SEZ over MLE?
Hi, Ethiopian flying to the Seychelles directly? I tried to look it up but had no success. You could go via Nairobi but then it is not a direct flight by Ethiopian
Hi NYB – I’ve never been to MLE although it is high on our list. We’ve looked into the Conrad and Hyatt on MLE but haven’t been able to go because life got in the way.
My impression from reading reports on MLE and going to SEZ is there is more to do in the Seychelles Islands.
Hi Laszlo – Try searching matrix.itasoftware.com using a month long search from ADD.
http://www.nation.sc/index.php?art=25632
http://nazret.com/blog/index.php/2011/09/07/ethiopian-to-launch-addis-ababa-to-seychelles-flight