Coming Up – Day Trip In The Middle East

Good evening/morning from wherever you are in the world. I’m currently sitting in the Qantas Domestic Business Class lounge in Sydney about to commence my next crazy trip. As the title already states, I’ll be heading to the Middle East AGAIN. I’ll be staying In Abu Dhabi and will also be visiting Dubai briefly to pick up a few things. As usual with the coming up posts, I’ll explain how I’m getting there, where I’m staying and what points/cash I used. Just a heads up, this trip is very quick however, I’m going to try and review as much as I can which will be both beneficial for you as readers and for me to catalog and have more content.

Flight 1

For my flight over to Abu Dhabi, I’ll be taking my beloved Etihad. Yes, I’ve flown them way too much however, the last time I flew them in Business and reviewed it was at the start of the year and ALOT has changed since then. It’ll be interesting to see if the experience has improved or declined. I’m already feeling like it won’t be as good as it used to be due to cost cutting but we shall see.

For this flight, I used 105,000 Virgin Australia Velocity points and $AUD366 worth of taxes.

Etihad A380 Business Class

Hotel

I mentioned already that I’ll be staying in Abu Dhabi. It’s currently Winter in the Middle East and hotel prices are fantastic! The Middle East have a massive range of chain properties and it’s always a hard decision to decide where to stay because there’s so much choice. As I’m a Hyatt fan, I decided I’d obviously choose one of their properties and for this trip I decided to try the Hyatt Capital Gate.

If you’ve ever been to Abu Dhabi, you would most likely have seen it while driving into the city/corniche area. It’s easy to pick out because of the leaning shape and height of the building.

Hyatt Capital Gate Abu Dhabi

Whenever I’ve looked at staying at the property, they’ve always had good rates. As I’m only staying for one night, I booked a paid rate of $AUD159 which is fantastic value. I also could have booked it with 12,000 World Of Hyatt Points but considering how difficult it is to get Hyatt points in Australia, the paid rate was a no brainer. As a comparison, The Park Hyatt at Saadiyat Island was around $AUD359.

Hyatt Capital Gate Abu Dhabi

Flight 2

For the flight home back to Brisbane, I thought I’d try something different. I’ve flown Etihad First home too many times to count, flown Qatar First twice but funnily enough I haven’t ever flown Emirates First Class on a long-haul flight and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to do so.

For this flight, I used 144,000 Qantas points and around $AUD400 worth of taxes.

Emirates A380 First Class

On top of these, I’ll also be reviewing the Etihad lounge in Sydney, The Emirates First Class lounges in Dubai and possibly even the newer Business Class lounges.

Bottom Line

Yes the airline products I’m trying have been reviewed quite a bit however, I’m still excited to try them and see how they perform.