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Emirates Skywards is the frequent flyer program of Emirates, one of the world’s leading Middle Easterm airlines known for its luxurious service. Skywards offers members numerous ways to earn and redeem miles, but isn’t generally considered to be a highly valuable program. This guide will explore how to earn Skywards miles, highlight valuable redemption options, explain the program’s expiration/cancellation policies, and discuss how to earn elite status and the nuances of Emirates' award pricing.
How to Earn Skywards Miles
Flying on Emirates
Earning Skywards miles is straightforward when flying with Emirates. The miles earned are based on the distance flown, fare class, and your membership tier. Unfortunately, it is not easy to determine exactly how many miles you’ll earn just by looking at your flight. You’ll need to use the Emirates earn calculator to figure that out.
Flying On Airline Partners
Emirates is not part of the three major airline alliances, so it has a network of independent partners where you can earn miles. Mileage earning varies significantly by airline, so the best way to figure out the exacts is to look at this page, where you can see all the specific earn rates across all the Emirates partners.
Credit Card Transfer Partners
Emirates partners with several major credit card issuers worldwide, making it easy to accumulate miles through credit card point transfers.
Here are some of our favorite cards you can get to quickly get more Emirates miles:
Buy Emirates Miles
You can purchase Emirates miles through the website. However, this is rarely a good deal, as Emirates charges a whopping $30 USD / 1,000 miles (3 cents per point).
Notably, Emirates does occasionally run point sales where you can purchase their points at a discount. This could be a good way to top off your points when you need to, but approach purchasing award flights carefully and always make sure you’re getting good value.
Do Skywards Miles Expire?
Skywards miles expire three years after they are earned, at the end of the month in which they were earned. You have the option to extend the lifetime of your miles at the small cost of $20 USD / 1,000 miles (sarcasm), and you can only reinstate up to 50,000 miles per year.
How To Earn Emirates Skywards Elite Status
Emirates Skywards offers four elite status tiers, providing various benefits to frequent flyers:
- Blue: Free
- Silver: 25,000 Tier Miles or 25 flights
- Gold: 50,000 Tier Miles or 50 flights
- Platinum: 150,000 Tier Miles
While Tier Miles are calculated at the same rate as Skywards Miles, you can earn Tier Miles only on Emirates flights, flydubai flights and codeshare flights marketed by Emirates but operated by another airline
Emirates status gives you accelerated mileage earning, priority check in, additional checked bag capacities, complimentary seat selection, lounge access, etc.
Who Are Emirates’ Partners?
Despite being an independen airline, Emirates has established a strong network of airline partners to enhance the earning and redemption opportunities for its members. Some of its major partners include:
- Alaska Airlines
- JetBlue
- Korean Air
- Japan Airlines
- South African Airways
- easyJet
- Qantas
- United Airlines
How Emirates Prices Its Award Flights
Emirates prices award flights on its own flights differently from how it prices partner airline flights. While it has a nice award chart for partner airlines, it does not have a published award chart for its own flights. The easiest way to determine the cost of an Emirate-operated award flight is through their website, which can make it a little slower/difficult to figure out the cost of an Emirate award flight.
Thankfully, the partner airline award chart is easy to work with:
Emirates Skywards Sweet Spots
Emirates Skywards offers some sweet spot redemptions that can provide exceptional value for your miles. Here are a few notable examples:
Emirates First Class: One Way From The US For 102k Miles
Remember when Emirates announced its first class shower, private suite, and exclusive A380 lounge? Yeah, that’s one of the flights that dropped my jaw.
While it’s possible to book Emirates First Class using partner airlines, the easiest way to do it is directly through the Emirates website. There are several routes served by this popular, stunning aircraft:
- JFK <> MXP: 102k miles one-way
- IAD <> DXB: 163,500 miles one-way
- JFK <> DXB: 163,500 miles one-way
- LAX <> DXB: 186k miles one-way
This can definitely be an expensive redemption, but it’s worth considering what you’re getting out of it.
EWR/IAD To Europe: 77,500 Miles One Way
Emirates is partnered with some Star Alliance carriers, which can present some unique opportunities to get good value out of your points (and may even be cheaper than booking directly with the partner itself). For instance, you can fly TAP Air Business class from EWR to Lisbon or take IAD to Frankfurt via United Airlines Polaris business class. Many such good options when leveraging partner award availability.
Emirates Award Cancellation Policy
Emirates has a semi-flexible cancellation policy for award tickets. You can cancel and redeposit your miles for a fee, which varies depending on the type of award and the class of service. Flex Rewards can be changed/canceled at anytime for no fee and full refund. However, other rewards will typically come with a $25 change fee or up to a $75 fee to reinstate your miles after cancelling.
Conclusion
The Emirates Skywards program is a decent frequent flyer program. However, it does not have a lot of high value redemption potential, so it is not typically considered among the highest value programs out there. Nevertheless, if you want to fly Emirates first class, there’s no better way to do it.
