Maximise your Avios, air miles and hotel points

How to earn Avios and British Airways tier points when flying Emirates

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I’ve been running a few reference articles this month as news is thin on the ground, sharing some tips which new readers might not know about.

One of those ‘things you didn’t know you didn’t know’ is that it is possible to earn British Airways Avios points and tier points when flying with Emirates.

Emirates is an excellent choice for long-haul travel, especially in premium cabins on the A380 routes and especially if you live in the regions and would otherwise need to connect at Heathrow.  Here is my review of Emirates A380 First Class and here is my review of Emirates A380 Business Class.

One downside is Emirates Skywards.  It is a pretty feeble loyalty scheme with low earning rates and high redemption rates.  You can redeem for Arsenal VIP football tickets and for easyJet flights and for Heathrow Rewards credit but that is about it.

One alternative is crediting Emirates flights to Alaska Airlines as the two are partners.  Alaska is also a British Airways partner so you could redeem the miles for BA flights.  If you didn’t have enough, you could credit a few BA, Air France or KLM flights to Alaska to top up your account.

There is an alternative, though.

Qantas signed a major tie-up with Emirates four years ago.  A large number of Emirates flights now carry Qantas flight codes.  Qantas is also a member of the oneworld alliance alongside British Airways.

As long as your Emirates flight is booked under a Qantas (QF) flight number and not an Emirates (EK) flight number, you will receive Avios points when you fly.

I got my wife to try this out back in 2015.  She had to fly to Singapore for a conference and got herself routed London – Dubai – Singapore – Dubai – London.

This is what posted on ba.com:

imageedit_5_6059368811

As you can see, full long-haul tier points – 560 tier points for the return trip – and Avios were received.  Whilst it states that all four flights were ‘operated by Qantas’, this is not the case.  Three were on Emirates with only QF1 being on a Qantas aircraft.

To book an Emirates flight under the Qantas flight numbers, you should use the Qantas website to book.  Flights may be cheaper, the same or more expensive than booking via the Emirates site – it varies by service – so be careful.

Expedia and other third party sites may also show Emirates flights with Qantas flight numbers but you need to check this carefully before hitting the ‘buy’ button.

Not all Emirates routes carry a Qantas flight code unfortunately, but you should be OK to most places in Asia.  For corporate bookings, you need to carefully explain to your travel booking company what you want to do.

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards

How to earn Avios from UK credit cards (April 2024)

As a reminder, there are various ways of earning Avios points from UK credit cards.  Many cards also have generous sign-up bonuses!

In February 2022, Barclaycard launched two exciting new Barclaycard Avios Mastercard cards with a bonus of up to 25,000 Avios. You can apply here.

You qualify for the bonus on these cards even if you have a British Airways American Express card:

Barclaycard Avios Plus card

Barclaycard Avios Plus Mastercard

Get 25,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £10,000 Read our full review

Barclaycard Avios card

Barclaycard Avios Mastercard

5,000 Avios for signing up and an upgrade voucher at £20,000 Read our full review

There are two official British Airways American Express cards with attractive sign-up bonuses:

British Airways American Express Premium Plus

25,000 Avios and the famous annual 2-4-1 voucher Read our full review

British Airways American Express

5,000 Avios for signing up and an Economy 2-4-1 voucher for spending £15,000 Read our full review

You can also get generous sign-up bonuses by applying for American Express cards which earn Membership Rewards points. These points convert at 1:1 into Avios.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

Run your own business?

We recommend Capital on Tap for limited companies. You earn 1 Avios per £1 which is impressive for a Visa card, along with a sign-up bonus worth 10,500 Avios.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 12th May 2024, the Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa card is offering a bonus of 30,000 points, convertible into 30,000 Avios. You must have a Limited Company to apply. Click here to learn more and click here to apply.

Capital on Tap Business Rewards Visa

Huge 30,000 points bonus until 12th May 2024 Read our full review

You should also consider the British Airways Accelerating Business credit card. This is open to sole traders as well as limited companies and has a 30,000 Avios sign-up bonus.

British Airways Accelerating Business American Express

30,000 Avios sign-up bonus – plus annual bonuses of up to 30,000 Avios Read our full review

There are also generous bonuses on the two American Express Business cards, with the points converting at 1:1 into Avios. These cards are open to sole traders as well as limited companies.

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Business Gold

20,000 points sign-up bonus and FREE for a year Read our full review

Click here to read our detailed summary of all UK credit cards which earn Avios. This includes both personal and small business cards.

Category

British Airways and Avios, Emirates and Emirates Skywards

Comments (48)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Joseph Heenan says:
    23 Aug23 August 04:17

    I tried to do the Qantas/Emirates thing for flights to Tokyo a couple of months ago and it seemed like it wasn’t possible. Rob’s comment that it works for most places in Asia has me wondering if I did something wrong – anyone able to confirm either way?

    • Sam Goss says:
      23 Aug23 August 05:39

      You usually have to book via Expedia in my experience to get it to match the Emirates price, the Qantas website shows them more expensive

      • Ricardo says:
        23 Aug23 August 14:34

        I think the code-sharing opportunities depend on where the journey starts. I recently needed to book an EK single from DXB to BEY and, aware of this opportunity, failed then to find anyone that could book it as a QF codeshare (tried Qantas direct, Expedia and numerous others online plus called Amex Travel). If however starting your journey from Australia (or perhaps just not DXB?) you can find the same flight as an onward connection as a QF codeshare. I wondered if this was the expected result or I just needed to try harder!

    • Rashad says:
      23 Aug23 August 05:48

      YES flew DXB-BNE on QF codeshare, TPs and avios credited within 6 days.
      Did you follow as per Robs guide above?

  • Butzi says:
    23 Aug23 August 05:51

    I like the fact you can book hotels with Skywards miles – even with low amount of miles (~16,000), I was able to book a Holiday Inn Express.

  • Johnny says:
    23 Aug23 August 05:58

    So I’m assuming that once you have a ready made the booking on an EK flight number that you cannot change it to a QF flight number post booking? Is the best option then to change the frequent flyer number to an Alaskan number or to accumulate emirates skywards points?

    • Drav says:
      23 Aug23 August 08:00

      collect alaskan miles. everyone should…

    • Rob says:
      23 Aug23 August 08:05

      Depends how many you are going to earn and whether you have an Amex Membership Rewards account which could top up the Skywards account. If you would get to 6,000 Skywards then crediting to Emirates and emptying out for a £20 Heathrow Rewards voucher is probably the cleanest route.

  • Gerry says:
    23 Aug23 August 06:54

    Is there any way at all to transfer Emirates Skywards point OUT of their scheme?

    • Clive says:
      23 Aug23 August 07:03

      Isn’t Heathrow Rewards considered the best route for this? To spend on duty free. I think was 6000 skywards = £20 voucher?

      • Rob says:
        23 Aug23 August 08:01

        Arsenal is the best way!

        • roberto says:
          23 Aug23 August 09:06

          +1
          unless they play stoke every week

        • Botham says:
          23 Aug23 August 21:19

          I opted for the Box tickets for the Brighton match, then discovered that it is a 12 noon start, which could be challenging. I asked if I could cancel and they said no and no cooling off period.

          So my weekend will start with standing on the terrace at Royston Town v Weymouth, followed by an SPG redemption at the Westbury, Mayfair and then the Arsenal match

    • Alex W says:
      23 Aug23 August 09:03

      There was an article on this literally yesterday!
      https://headforpoints.com/2017/08/22/how-to-use-small-orphan-amounts-of-miles-and-points-part-2-airlines-and-shopping-3/

      I haven’t done the arsenal redemption but in my opinion is not good value compared to a normal ticket. There are normal tickets available for most games if you know where to look.

      • Rob says:
        23 Aug23 August 10:20

        Really? Standard tickets for the game I’m going to are 12,500 Emirates miles. That is £40 of Heathrow Rewards vouchers. As these will be the best standard seats in the ground, I’m pretty sure you can’t buy them for £40.

        The box seats are 20,000 miles which would only get you £60 of Heathrow shopping vouchers if you converted that way and I’m pretty sure you can’t get a fully caterered box seat – yet alone in the best positioned box in the ground – for £60 ….

        • Alex W says:
          23 Aug23 August 11:13

          Well I wouldn’t consider a £40 voucher to be good use of 12500 miles either! But if it was a choice between the two options then clearly Arsenal tickets would be preferable.
          But unless you’re going on your own you’d need at least 25,000 miles – for those with modest points balances perhaps these could be used for a flight instead.
          Then there is the box Vs crowd argument – give me the crowd any day which IIRC the cheapest is about £26 at Arsenal.

          • Alex W says:
            23 Aug23 August 11:37

            I know we’ll have to agree to disagree on the last point – unless you, me and Jordan D care to ponder that with the hoi polloi at the Twelve Pins or similar before your game??

  • Jak says:
    23 Aug23 August 07:18

    Interesting, but whenever I come across a QF flight number how can I check whether this is a Quantas plane or a Emirates plane? I thought if it says ‘operated by quantas’ it meant a Quantas plane?

    • TimS says:
      23 Aug23 August 07:52

      The easiest way to check would be to search for the flight number/details on the Qantas or Emirates website.

      BA will say “operated by Qantas” on their website regardless of it being Emirates or Qantas metal as Emirates isn’t OW & BA have no partnership with EK.

      Emirates or Qantas (or indeed Expedia) will show the correct operator.

    • Alanr says:
      23 Aug23 August 17:34

      I think all 4 digit Qantas flight numbers starting with 8 are code share flights operated by Emirates. Drop the 8 and you get the Emirates flight number. Eg. QF8406 is actually EK406 (DXB – MEL).

  • JK says:
    23 Aug23 August 07:56

    I have some Qantas flights to DXB coming up next week. Both legs booked as QF flight numbers, though the return is operated by Emirates.

    As a BA Gold/OneWorld Emerald – does anyone have any ideas what I can expect on the return flight, in terms of OneWorld privileges? Do Emirates honour any of them at all? Can I use business check-in, choose seats, etc..?

    • Mari says:
      23 Aug23 August 14:53

      Flew out to Australia with my husband via Dubai and I am OW Emerald/BA gold.

      No lounge access or other perks, since Emirates aren’t OW. I did ask…

      We had a 5 day stopover in Dubai since my in-laws live there, but overall I’d take QR J class since the flights cost less for the same amount of tier points, service is excellent and you get the perks including the wonderful Al Mourjan lounge in Doha.

  • Paul J says:
    23 Aug23 August 08:03

    Does anyone know if you still get the car with Emirates operated flights in first class when booking with Qantas flight numbers??

  • Matthew says:
    23 Aug23 August 09:06

    Im 2016 I flew to Dubai return,on a QF flight code. The LHR to Dubai was Emirates metal, and the return flight Qantas metal.
    I received tier and avios points for both flights.
    In regards to other benefits, it was less than straightforward. if Emirates metal, your oneworld benefits, such as lounge access, priority check in etc. are not recognised by emirates, despite being a QF code. They treated us like something they had stepped in, nasty. I could not access Emirates lounge. In T3 i just went to BA lounge, who saw a QF code and let me in.
    The return from Dubai, same issue, but after speaking eventually to a Qantas person, and after much berating Emirates standards, lower than QF, i was able to check in and was granted lounge access as flying on QF metal to London. If it had been Emirates metal, no access. Therefore on my next trip, i will try to fly QF metal, at least as far as Dubai.
    This was for an economy ticket, so if flying Business some issues will go away.

    • Drav says:
      23 Aug23 August 18:02

      not sure why you expect emirates to honour one world status just because of their JV with Qantas. Perfectly reasonable for them not to.

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