Etihad Airways’ loyalty program Etihad Guest is striving to make travel more convenient and have introduced a new payment feature to its membership card – walletplus.

Walletplus is powered by Visa and allows members to load travel money onto their Etihad Guest card and convert it to 11 different foreign currencies to spend whenever and wherever.

The membership card can be loaded in advance, enabling card holders to better manage their travel budgets by locking in competitive exchange rates in real time before they travel.

A maximum of 11 currencies can be held on the card at any one time, one of which must be UAE Dirham.

The 10 other currencies to choose from include Australian Dollar, US Dollar, Pound Sterling, Euro, Indian Rupee, Canadian Dollar, Singapore Dollar, Hong Kong Dollar, Japanese Yen and Thai Baht.

Etihad Guest managing director Yasser Al Yousuf, said that the Etihad Guest loyalty program focusses on providing features and benefits that enhance value to its members.

“The new Etihad Guest Card with walletplus™ is innovative in that it combines the functionality of a reloadable payment card with the benefits of Etihad Guest membership in a single piece of plastic, a first in loyalty and travel payments in the Middle East,” Mr Al Yousuf said.

Additionally, Etihad Guest members can download the walletplus™ mobile application to access a range of functions that include checking their account balance and transaction history, and transfer money to other Etihad Guest members with an activated walletplus™ account.

Etihad Guest members can earn one Etihad Guest Mile per US$2 spent in the UAE, and one Etihad Guest Mile per US$1 spent abroad when paying with walletplus™.

The partnership with Visa allows the Etihad Guest card with walletplus™ to be used to pay at tens of millions of global merchants, and card holders can withdraw cash at more than 2.1 million ATMs across the world. Etihad Guest Tier members in the UAE will begin receiving their new Etihad Guest card with walletplus™ in early March.

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