You can now book Arsenal football games using your Emirates Skywards miles

Emirates has done its traditional August release of Arsenal football tickets for Emirates Skywards members who have miles to redeem.

This season sees a couple of changes:

pricing is more variable – there has historically just been high and low depending on opposition

games are being released at shorter notice

The latter change is actually an improvement.  The TV scheduling is only decided a couple of months in advance.  Historically you could book a ticket for a Saturday and end up seeing the game on Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday.  Even worse, Emirates did not allow you to refund your tickets if the date was changed.  The new system hopefully allows tickets to only be released when the date is firm.

You can see the current games available on this page of the Emirates website (log in required).  You can pick from Aston Villa, Bournemouth and Crystal Palace which takes you up to late October.

The cheapest game is Aston Villa.  It is 11,000 miles per seat for a standard ticket and 22,000 for the Emirates VIP box.

The box is VERY good.  It is the best located box in the stadium and you get good quality drinks and hot food before, during and after the game.  Here is a review of a past trip although I have been 7-8 times since.

Note that you are restricted to two tickets per game per Skywards account.

Transfers from American Express Membership Rewards to Emirates Skywards are instantaneous if the accounts are already linked and should be pretty quick even if they are not.  You can redeem for someone else BUT the name must be provided at the time of booking.

Photo ID IS required and IS checked (tickets must be collected in person from the Arsenal offices on the day) although when I couldn’t go once due to a date change a friend got away with showing a credit card in my name.

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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.