50% bonus on Emirates conversions to Heathrow Rewards – worth it?

Heathrow Rewards has launched an interesting promotion – a 50% bonus when you convert your Emirates Skywards miles INTO Heathrow Rewards points.

This deal runs until 31st December.

Emirates Skywards joined Heathrow Rewards as a transfer partner back in May 2015 – see here.   As British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Lufthansa and Etihad were already transfer partners, it was not a surprising addition.  The transfer rate is the same as the other airline partners.  250 Heathrow Rewards points gets you 250 miles.

What WAS surprising is that you were also allowed to transfer Emirates Skywards miles INTO Heathrow Rewards. The details are here.

Here are the rules when no bonus is running:

The minimum Emirates transfer into Heathrow Rewards is 6,000 miles.

The conversion rate is 3:1 so 6,000 miles gets you 2,000 Heathrow Rewards points

The maximum conversion per transaction is 54,000 Emirates Skywards miles

As 2,000 Heathrow Rewards points gets you a £20 shopping voucher, you are getting 0.33p per mile

You CANNOT convert Heathrow Rewards points gained via Emirates into airline miles

The final point above is very important.  The ONLY thing you can do with Heathrow Rewards points generated from a Heathrow Rewards conversion is to redeem for a Heathrow shopping voucher.

I tried this out when the feature was first launched.  I moved 6,000 Emirates Skywards miles across.  The transfer was INSTANT.  I logged out of my Heathrow Rewards account, logged back in and the 2,000 points were there.

Next to your points total online is a little question mark.  Click on this and a box pops up which says:

Heathrow points:  xxx

Emirates converted points: xxx

I went over to the Avios conversion page.  I got a message “You do not have enough points to redeem for this reward” – which was true, excluding the Emirates miles.

I then went to the shopping vouchers page and WAS able to redeem for £20 of shopping vouchers without any problems.

With a 50% bonus, you will receive a £30 Heathrow shopping voucher for every 6,000 Skywards miles you convert.

This is still not an outstanding deal by any means.  It is pointless (sic) converting American Express Membership Rewards points to Emirates Skywards to Heathrow Rewards just to get 0.5p per mile – there are plenty of Amex redemptions which offer better value than that.

However, this IS an excellent way of using up some spare Emirates Skywards miles (minimum 6,000) if they are about to expire.

Don’t forget the other two ways of using up small amounts though – Arsenal football tickets and redeeming for easyJet flights.

Remember that you CANNOT use this as a method of converting Skywards miles into Avios by laundering them through Heathrow Rewards – the IT works and those redemptions are blocked off.

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How to earn Emirates Skywards miles from UK credit cards (March 2024)

Emirates Skywards does not have a UK credit card.  However, you can earn Emirates Skywards miles by converting Membership Rewards points earned from selected UK American Express cards.

Cards earning Membership Rewards points include:

• American Express Preferred Rewards Gold (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 20,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 20,000 Emirates Skywards miles. This card is FREE for your first year and also comes with four free airport lounge passes.

• The Platinum Card from American Express (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 40,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 40,000 Emirates Skywards miles

• American Express Rewards credit card (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 10,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 10,000 Emirates Skywards miles. This card is FREE for life.

Membership Rewards points convert at 1:1 into Emirates Skywards miles which is an attractive rate.  The cards above all earn 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent on your card, which converts to 1 Emirates Skywards mile. The Gold card earns double points (2 per £1) on all flights you charge to it.