diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index f88fb240f..cea2eaa9e 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,5 +1,10 @@
 # Changelog
 
+## 4.26.1
+
+- [#306] (https://github.com/cohere-ai/cohere-python/pull/306)
+  - AsyncClient: Fix correctly raising error on connection issues.
+
 ## 4.26
 
 - [#296] (https://github.com/cohere-ai/cohere-python/pull/301)
diff --git a/cohere/client_async.py b/cohere/client_async.py
index f95e944a7..56e9f2b43 100644
--- a/cohere/client_async.py
+++ b/cohere/client_async.py
@@ -113,11 +113,13 @@ async def _request(
 
         try:
             json_response = await response.json()
-        #   `CohereAPIError.from_response()` will capture the http status code
+        #   `CohereAPIError.from_aio_response()` will capture the http status code
         except jsonlib.decoder.JSONDecodeError:
-            raise CohereAPIError.from_response(response, message=f"Failed to decode json body: {await response.text()}")
+            raise CohereAPIError.from_aio_response(
+                response, message=f"Failed to decode json body: {await response.text()}"
+            )
         except aiohttp.ClientPayloadError as e:
-            raise CohereAPIError.from_response(
+            raise CohereAPIError.from_aio_response(
                 response, message=f"An unexpected error occurred while receiving the response: {e}"
             )
 
diff --git a/cohere/error.py b/cohere/error.py
index 3681bd35d..18c1afe1a 100644
--- a/cohere/error.py
+++ b/cohere/error.py
@@ -29,6 +29,10 @@ def __init__(self, message: str = None, http_status: int = None, headers: Dict =
     def from_response(cls, response, message=None):
         return cls(message=message or response.text, http_status=response.status_code, headers=response.headers)
 
+    @classmethod
+    def from_aio_response(cls, response, message):
+        return cls(message=message, http_status=response.status, headers=response.headers)
+
     def __repr__(self) -> str:
         return f"{self.__class__.__name__}(message={str(self)}, http_status={self.http_status})"
 
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 8b1695d12..cf3f915a0 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 [tool.poetry]
 name = "cohere"
-version = "4.26"
+version = "4.26.1"
 description = ""
 authors = ["Cohere"]
 readme = "README.md"