Get VIP tickets to the BMW PGA golf with your Emirates Skywards miles

A few weeks ago, Hilton Honors was offering tickets for the BMW PGA Golf Championship at Virginia Water in September. The cost was 80,000 Hilton Honors points for TWO people for a full VIP package for a day.

Emirates Skywards has now popped up with an identical offering. As regular readers may have already guessed, the price is far less attractive.

Emirates is offering VIP packages for the BMW PGA tournament for 50,000 Skywards miles per ticket.

To put this in comparison:

• I value a Hilton Honors point at 0.33p so, at 80,000 points, you were giving up £266 of free hotel rooms for two VIP packages

• I value an Emirates Skywards mile at 1p so, at 50,000 miles per ticket, you are giving up £1,000 of free flights for two VIP packages

If you look at it from the point of view of converting American Express Membership Rewards points:

• 40,000 Amex points got you 80,000 Hilton points for two VIP packages

• 100,000 Amex points gets you 100,000 Emirates miles for two VIP packages

That said, as the Hilton packages sold out so quickly that we didn’t have time to write about most of them, it is a theoretical discussion. The Emirates packages are available and, due to the high price, probably won’t fly off the shelf.

Amex transfers to Emirates are also instantaneous if your accounts are already linked (it may take an hour or so if not) so there is no risk of a package disappearing whilst you wait for a transfer to complete.

You can see details on the Emirates sport tickets website here.

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How to earn Emirates Skywards miles from UK credit cards (September 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 15,000 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 30,000 Emirates Skywards miles

• American Express Rewards credit card (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 10,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 7,500 Emirates Skywards miles. This card is FREE for life.

Membership Rewards points convert at 4:3 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 0.75 Emirates Skywards miles. The Gold card earns double points (2 per £1) on all flights you charge to it, with any airline.