Emirates Skywards: What to Know - NerdWallet (2024)

Have you seen those photos of ridiculously blinged-out airline seats? You know the ones: They often include flashy big-screen TVs, pop-up minibars, digital windows and seats so big you could melt right into them.

These luxurious cabins belong to Emirates, an international airline based in the United Arab Emirates. While the airline will happily sell you a ticket to fly in these seats, we’ve got another way.

In this guide to the airline’s loyalty program, Emirates Skywards, we'll show you how to gain elite status, earn miles and redeem them for those super-fancy seats — without even traveling to the Middle East.

Emirates isn’t all gold-hued seats and private cabins. It has all the regular cabins you’d expect from an airline, including economy class seating. Yet even Emirates economy class sets the bar high in terms of quality. Emirates was the first airline to introduce individual television screens in economy class (that was way back in 1992), and it continues to innovate with above-average ergonomic features and high-quality food and entertainment.

What the airline is really known for, however, is its ultra-exclusive first class products, which offer perks such as onboard showers, standing bars for business and first class travelers, and state-of-the-art, faux digital windows (in case you get a middle suite). The first class bathroom on the Emirates A380 aircraft even has heated floors.

Fare types

Emirates operates four different cabins of service: economy, premium economy, business class and first class. Though, you won’t find each class of service on every flight since planes are configured differently. That's especially true of Emirates premium economy, which was only just announced in 2021 on a small set of routes, but has been rapidly expanding.

Main U.S. routes on Emirates

Emirates operates flights between its Dubai hub and the following U.S. cities:

The airline also flies between Newark and Athens, Greece, and between New York-John F. Kennedy and Milan. Historically these so-called “fifth freedom” routes have been an easy way to fly the airline for a relatively low number of miles compared with flying all the way to Dubai.

To sign up for the Skywards program, go to this page and complete the form. You’ll be given the option to receive promotional emails, which can be helpful to keep up with fare sales, new routes and the like.

NerdWallet values Emirates miles at 0.6 cent per point, as of our most recent analysis. In January 2023 the program increased its award pricing across the board for premium cabins, so you’ll want to make sure these miles still represent a good value to you.

To help you understand how much your Emirates Skywards miles are worth, we compared cash prices and reward redemptions for economy round-trip routes across several destinations and dates. We divided the cost of the cash ticket by the cost of the reward ticket to determine a “cent per mile” value for each flight, then averaged this value across several flights and dates.

Emirates has four elite tiers: Blue, Silver, Gold and Platinum. Here’s what’s required to earn each status at a glance, along with some notable perks:

Let’s dive deeper into each tier’s benefits:

Emirates Blue status benefits

Emirates Silver status benefits

Emirates Gold status benefits

Emirates Platinum status benefits

There are multiple ways to earn Emirates Skyward miles, from flying on Emirates and its partner airlines to using a transferable currency or holding an Emirates co-branded credit card. Here are all the ways you can increase your balance of Skyward miles.

Earning when you fly Emirates

Unlike most U.S. airlines, Emirates calculates earned miles based on distance flown and fare class, rather than the ticket cost. On top of that, as noted above, Silver members earn 30% bonus miles per flight, Gold members earn 75% and Platinum members earn 100%.

As a Blue member, here’s what you’d earn on a one-way flight between Miami and Dubai, for example:

Earning when you fly other airlines

Emirates lists more than a dozen airline partners through which you can earn miles through flying, including Air Canada (but no U.S. airlines at this time). You’ll earn up to 2 Skywards miles per mile flown on these partner airlines, as long as you choose to credit your flights to Emirates.

Earning Emirates miles with a credit card

Emirates launched two credit cards for U.S. travelers a few years ago, both issued through Barclays. The bonuses on these cards alone are enough to get you well on your way to an award flight.

The Emirates Skywards Premium World Elite Mastercard® charges a $499 annual fee and comes with the following:

Meanwhile, for a $99 annual fee, the Emirates Skywards Rewards World Elite Mastercard® includes:

Transferable currencies to Emirates

Earning Emirates miles through partners

Pooling Emirates miles

Emirates allows you to create a family account of up to eight members, including yourself. You can credit 100% of reward miles earned by family members to this account.

Buying, gifting or transferring Emirates miles

Emirates lets you buy or gift miles, to the tune of $30 per 1,000 miles up to a maximum of 100,000 to 200,000 miles per year, based on your elite tier level. You can also transfer miles for $15 per 1,000 miles, up to 50,000 miles per year.

Emirates doesn’t publish an award chart for its own flights, but the airline makes it pretty easy to figure out how many miles a flight will cost. Use the airline’s mileage calculator to select your city pairs, then click “calculate.” On the results page, select the “spend” tab to see how many miles the itinerary costs.

Beware that Emirates will also levy surcharges on its own flights — sometimes hundreds of dollars.

When booking flights, you’ll have the option to pay with a combination of cash and miles. This can significantly knock down the cash price of a flight, so it’s worth checking out if you have a specific itinerary in mind and don’t have enough miles for a reward ticket.

Good Emirates redemption options

Award flights to Europe: The most competitive use of Emirates miles for most American travelers is on the airline’s flights between the U.S. and Europe. Here’s what you’ll pay to fly between New York-John F. Kennedy and Milan in one direction in the airline’s premium cabins:

Similar rates typically apply to the airline’s other U.S.-to-Europe route, between Newark and Athens.

These are solid rates compared with other rewards programs, especially considering you’re paying for an experience you won’t get on most other airlines flying between the U.S. and Europe. Flights on the A380 like the one above, for example, feature an on-board lounge for first class and business class passengers and private showers for those in first class.

Just make sure to factor in the added costs of any connecting flight you’d have to take.

Partner redemptions: You can sometimes find good value in redeeming Skywards miles on partner airlines. Emirates isn’t a part of any of the major airline alliances, but you can see the airlines they partner with here, along with distance-based award charts for flying on each airline.

Award upgrades: Once you’ve booked a flight in cash, you can use your miles to upgrade to the next available class of service, assuming seats are available. Depending on how good a deal your cash ticket was, this can sometimes be a cheap way to upgrade your experience.

Free stopovers: Depending on the award fare booked, getting an extended stopover (more than 24 hours) in Dubai may be possible without using extra miles. These aren’t always bookable online so if it’s something you’re interested in, you’ll want to call in and ask.

Bad Emirates redemption options

Award flights to Dubai and beyond: Unfortunately, pretty much any Emirates flight between the U.S. and the carrier’s hub in Dubai, and onward, will cost you. Flying one way from Los Angeles to the Emirati capital in business class, you’ll owe a whopping 157,500 miles plus over $800 in surcharges:

But note that flying economy knocks off most of the surcharges, as in this example between Washington-Dulles and Dubai:

Use the airline’s mileage calculator to plug in other examples of your choosing. Just remember to click “calculate,” then “spend” to see how much the itinerary costs.

Non-flight redemptions: You can use your Emirates miles to book hotels or special events directly, but these generally represent a poor value. If you have limited miles to burn, the Emirates store allows you to purchase airline merchandise with miles.

Other ways to redeem miles for Emirates flights

If Emirates miles are difficult to come by, you can book their flights through a variety of other airline programs, including Air Canada’s Aeroplan, Japan Airlines’ Mileage Bank and Qantas Frequent Flyer. Availability generally isn’t as good as when booking directly through Emirates. Be sure to watch out for potentially hefty surcharges.

Emirates’ U.S. phone number is 1-800-777-3999. In addition, you can access the airline via live chat, or contact them through Facebook or Twitter.

Miles expire three years after they are earned or transferred, unless you have Platinum status, in which case they never expire. Additionally, Emirates lets you pay to extend any miles that are set to expire in the next three months. You can extend them for 12 months beyond their original expiration date.

It can be surprisingly easy to rack up miles with the Emirates Skywards program, especially given their many transfer partners. Whether you’re looking to redeem those miles for an economy-class experience or one of their famous premium cabins, you have plenty of solid options to do so.