The best way to fly Emirates First Class without spending a dime with factors & miles

Friday newsletters at all times function luxurious journey contests, suggestions or information.

At the moment: The best way to guide Emirates First Class utilizing factors & miles?

Emirates gives one of many greatest First Class merchandise on the earth, with complimentary chauffeur-driven airport transfers, spectacular airport lounges, wonderful onboard suites with sliding doorways, connoisseur eating within the sky, Dom Perignon Champagne aperitifs, and world-class facilities & amenities (assume moisturizing pajamas, digital home windows, zero gravity beds, and an onboard bar). You’ll be able to learn my journey reviews right here:

Emirates has put in First Class on each its Airbus A380 and Boeing 777 plane. The ‘outdated’ First Class product is comparable on each plane varieties, though you gained’t get to expertise the well-known bathe spa and inflight bar if you don’t fly on the A380. And whereas this ‘outdated’ product already set the usual for First Class worldwide 20 years in the past, Emirates lately launched a brand new First Class cabin that set the bar even increased. This new product (usually dubbed the ‘Recreation Changer’ First Class Suites) is simply accessible on a small variety of Boeing 777 plane, which fly on a restricted variety of routes between Dubai and Brussels, Geneva, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Singapore, Paris, London, Riyadh, New York and Washington.

Whereas the price of a roundtrip First Class ticket with Emirates is someplace between $5000 and $25,000 USD, you may also use miles and factors to guide an award seat (virtually without spending a dime) within the airline’s most sought-after premium cabin. The excellent news is that Emirates makes a variety of award area accessible in its First Class cabin. Alternatively, Emirates isn’t a part of an airline alliance, so it doesn’t have as many companions as different carriers for reserving award seats. Prior to now, Emirates allowed its First Class awards to be booked with Alaska Airways miles, Japan Airways miles, or Korean Air miles however that’s not the case. Alaska Airways terminated its partnership with Emirates on August 1, 2021. Quickly after, Japan Airways misplaced entry to Emirates’ First Class award area on September 1, 2021. Australia’s flag service Qantas remains to be allowed indefinitely.

Taken collectively, your choices for reserving a First Class Emirates award seat are restricted to:

• Utilizing miles through the frequent flyer program of Emirates and Qantas
• Changing Marriott Rewards resort factors into frequent flyer miles with the loyalty applications of Emirates and Qantas
• Changing bank card factors into frequent flyer miles with the loyalty applications of Emirates and Qantas

I hereby offer you an outline of the very best methods to guide a First Class award seat on Emirates. Share you personal methods & suggestions within the feedback beneath.

EMIRATES SKYWARDS

One of the best frequent flyer program for reserving an Emirates First Class tickets is none aside from Emirates’ personal frequent flyer program, referred to as Skywards. Skywards was once a lackluster program providing little or no in worth to vacationers, however because the onset of the pandemic, this system has improved considerably, particularly following an enormous discount of the carrier-imposed surcharges on award tickets.

That is how one can guide an award ticket in First Class with Skywards:

1. Go to the Emirates web site
2. Log in to your Skywards account (proper higher nook)
3. After you log in, seek for flights
4. Choose your flights
5. Pay the award seat together with your miles and any extra taxes and charges with money

Emirates has a instrument on its web site that calculates the variety of Skywards miles wanted to guide a First Class award seat. Listed below are some examples (one-way First Class tickets solely):

• New York Metropolis to Milan for 85,000 Skywards miles
• Newark to Athens for 85,000 Skywards miles
• Dubai to Tokyo for 117,500 Skywards miles
• New York-JFK to Dubai for 136,250 Skywards miles
• Los Angeles to Dubai for 155,000 Skywards miles.

Emirates’ Skywards program does supply some nice alternatives for reserving award seats:

• Bookings may be made on-line
• All Emirates flights may be booked when an award seat is offered (no matter origin and departure).
• Emirates permits a stop-over on round-trip tickets, so you possibly can mix any journey with a number of days of rest in Dubai.
• Emirates permits passengers to pay for award flights utilizing any mixture of money and Skywards miles (which may be helpful for those who don’t have sufficient miles to pay the ticket).
• First Class award tickets booked through Skywards are eligible for chauffeur-driven transfers to/from the airport.

There are some disadvantages to contemplate robust when reserving a redemption through Skywards:

• One-way awards require greater than half of the round-trip mileage value.
• Though Skywards gives saver rewards throughout lower-demand intervals (which require much less miles in comparison with common awards ), saver awards usually are not provided for First Class tickets.

QANTAS POINTS

Qantas is the one different airline that has entry to Emirates’ First Class awards seats. Each airways code-share on the Kangaroo route between Australia and Europe, and have intensive partnerships of their respective frequent flyer applications (referred to as Qantas Factors for Qantas). As such, you possibly can redeem your Qantas Factors miles for Emirates First Class tickets on any flight operated by Emirates when an award seat is offered. And in case you don’t have sufficient miles in your account for an Emirates First Class ticket, Qantas Factors means that you can guide First Class awards seats utilizing a mixture of factors and money.

That stated, Qantas isn’t essentially the most economical method to guide Emirates redemptions as a result of the service expenses excessive gasoline surcharges and in addition requires an above common quantity of miles for First Class redemptions. Listed below are some examples:

• New York (JFK) to Dubai (DXB): 149,800 miles (one-way)
• Los Angeles (LAX) to Dubai (DXB): 170,800 miles (one-way)
• London (LHR) to Dubai (DXB): 89,800 miles (one-way)
• Paris (CDG) to Dubai (DXB): 89,800 miles (one-way)

CONVERT MARRIOTT BONVOY POINTS INTO FREQUENT FLYER MILES

Marriott’s loyalty program – referred to as Marriott Bonvoy – gives its members the chance to earn factors and change them for invaluable rewards after they keep at one among Marriott’s 30 completely different resort manufacturers throughout 6800+ places in additional than 150 nations. The most effective methods to spend your Marriott Bonvoy factors is to transform them in frequent flyer miles and use them for a First Class redemption, for instance with Emirates. The listing of Marriott Bonvoy’s airline companions is spectacular and the three:1 dialog charge of factors into miles is unequalled. As well as, you obtain a 5,000 mileage bonus if you convert 60,000 factors into miles (leading to 25,000 airline miles as a substitute of 20,000).  As a consequence, one of many single greatest values of Marriott Bonvoy is to switch your factors in bulks of 60,000 to an airline accomplice and guide free First Class award tickets or upgrades.

CONVERT CREDIT CARD POINTS INTO FREQUENT FLYER MILES

You’ll be able to increase your Emirates frequent flyer account together with your bank card spendings because the Skywards program is a 1:1 switch accomplice with the highest journey bank card rewards applications: American Specific Membership Rewards, Capital One, Chase Final Rewards, and Citi ThankYou. So even when you don’t fly Emirates or accrue miles with its frequent-flier program, you possibly can merely arrange a Skywards account (or a frequent flyer account with Qantas) and switch factors from any of these three applications to it at a 1:1 change charge and guide award seats.

*** Observe me on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Fb for a every day second of journey inspiration ***