Should you redeem your Emirates Skywards frequent flyer miles on easyJet?!

Emirates has a lot of high quality partnerships such as its established deal with Qantas.  It also works with many other well regarded legacy airlines such as JAL and Air Canada, giving members of the Emirates Skywards frequent flyer scheme more options for earning and spending miles.  We looked at the best Emirates Skywards airline partnerships here last December.

Emirates Skywards also has a partnership with easyJet.

Whilst you may be thinking ‘I’m never going to redeem my miles on easyJet’, you need to remember that Emirates Skywards has tough expiry rules for its miles.  You may find a small amount needs to be used quickly.

There are other options for expiring Emirates Skywards miles.  You can convert Emirates Skywards miles to Heathrow Rewards, for example, which lets you cash out for Heathrow Airport shopping vouchers.  A ring fencing deal means that you cannot move miles from Emirates to Heathrow Rewards and then on to Avios.  This is strictly enforced.

You should also look at using expiring Emirates Skywards miles as part-payment towards a hotel booking or for some Arsenal football tickets.

The Emirates Skywards and easyJet partnership

The two airlines are not directly comparable, I admit.  Compare the picture below of the Emirates Boeing 777-300ER First Class suite (review here) ….

…. with a 186 seat Airbus A320:

How are Emirates redemptions priced on easyJet?

There is no complex award chart to get your head around.  See this page of the Emirates website for full details of the deal.

As Emirates is basically buying you an easyJet ticket for cash using your miles, your tickets are non-refundable and non-changeable just like a normal easyJet ticket.

The good news is that you can redeem Emirates miles for the full cost of your flight.  There are no taxes to pay.  You can also pay for seat selection, baggage etc with miles as long as it is booked as part of the original transaction.

Here are some typical prices I looked up, comparing the miles required versus the easyJet cash price:

• £37.99 or 14,409 miles
• £75.99 or 25,586 miles
• £47.99 or 17,350 miles
• £73.99 or 24,998 miles

In these examples you are getting 0.26p, 0.29p, 0.28p and 0.29p per mile respectively.  This is a terrible deal, to put it mildly, unless your miles are on the verge of expiry.

The upside, of course, is that you can book any easyJet flight, on any day.  No black outs, no restrictions.  Except, of course, that the busier flights will need more miles.

The only rules to note are:

• there is a minimum redemption of 8,000 miles (around £25 of flight value)
• apart from a 24 hour cooling off period, you cannot cancel your booking

easyJet flights are one exit route for anyone stuck with expiring Emirates Skywards miles – although certainly not a good enough reason to go out of your way to accumulate Emirates miles in the first place.

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How to earn Emirates Skywards miles from UK credit cards (December 2023)

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 30,000 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 10,000 Emirates Skywards miles. This card is FREE for life.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 9th January 2024, you will receive 30,000 Membership Rewards points (convertible to 30,000 Avios) with American Express Preferred Rewards Gold. You receive 25,000 points if you spend £3,000 in three months and a further 5,000 points if you hold the card for 15 months. You can apply here.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 9th January 2024, you will receive a huge 100,000 Membership Rewards points (convertible to 100,000 Avios) with The Platinum Card. You receive 75,000 points if you spend £10,000 in six months and a further 25,000 points if you hold the card for 15 months. You can apply here.

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.