You’ve got just over 48 hours – well, a bit less by now, to book Emirates First Class awards unless you are (or make an effort to be) a Skywards Silver member or higher. May 11th is your last day – quite possibly end of day Dubai time, though that isn’t crystal clear.
Following moves by the likes of Swiss and Air France to restrict F awards to elite members (in those cases, not just elite but higher elite tier members), Emirates will now require status (at least it’s *any* status) to book their famous First Class cabins.
I reviewed my experience on Emirates A380 First Class here and I also did a comparison review of Emirates First Class vs. Etihad First Class here.
Now, I want to highlight how we flew Emirates F that time – we were at the check in counter, booked in Business Class, and used 54,000 Skywards miles (or you could have used $900) to upgrade to F. This only requires available seats, not any specific inventory, so it pays to arrive early if you know there are First Class seats available.
Importantly, AFAIK, this will remain available – but it’s 100% a gamble that you take your ride in Business.
You can, as of today, transfer points to Emirates Skywards from Citi ThankYou, Chase, Amex, Capital One, or Bilt (with Citi moving to a 1:0.8 ratio July 27 and Amex and Chase announcing 1 month transfer paused from the end of May).
I believe you can also still book via Aeroplan at a VERY (VERYYYYY) high rate (I found one seat for over 700,000 miles) as well as from Qantas, also at a high rate of 170,800 points plus a $1,373 AUD cash co-pay) and I assume both will cease to have availability at the same time though it isn’t specifically stated.
163,500 Miles + AED 3,260 (about $890) was what I found for a booking direct on the Emirates Skywards site, so very much the best way to book however if your plans change, you won’t be able to rebook it and your points will be stuck there. You could use for Business Class, of course, but miles do “hard expire” in three years.
To get Silver status in the US without earning it would require getting the Baclays credit card ($99 fee) and spending $20,000 in a year. Probably not worth it to most…
If you are like me and looking to fly their newest “game changer” First Class, and you don’t want to both start and end outside of the US, Chicago (ORD) is the only US gateway with the game changer configuration which you can tell as there are only 6 F seats.
Do I think this is a smart move? I don’t know. On the one hand, yes, too many “influencers” flying it have probably degraded the experience and that’s unequivocally bad for selling those seats for cash to the Emerati. On the other hand, it also brings them tons and tons of “free” press which you’d imagine will be less so going forward. I also think that given the exorbitant rates they charge in miles to fly it, it’s probably a money maker compared to flying those seats empty….
HT to Live from a Lounge for spotting this.
Thoughts?
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