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Emirates Skywards is planning a new UK credit card – here’s what they are thinking

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Emirates Skywards seems to have revived its plans to launch a new UK co-brand credit card.

This is a project that I know was being worked on before the pandemic (I know someone who worked on that one, and it even went as far as surveying members on preferred card designs) but was then dropped.

Someone has clearly now decided it is worth reviving.

A survey was sent to selected Skywards members on Friday:

“Emirates Skywards is considering launching a new credit card in the United Kingdom (UK). As a valued Skywards member in the UK, we would appreciate your time in completing a short survey to help us understand the credit card benefits and features that are important to you.”

The survey itself is nothing special:

  • Who is your current primary payment card with?
  • Which features from the list do you most like about that card?
  • What rewards do you earn on that card?
  • Would you be interested in having a co-branded Emirates credit card?
  • Which of these benefits would you want? (earning miles, a sign-up bonus, lounge access, insurance, elite status, flight and holiday discounts, in-flight benefits etc)

Emirates already has some ideas …..

The survey includes three possible structures for a credit card (click to enlarge):

You’ll see that all offer 0.75 Skywards miles per £1 spent.

(The image below is one of the old UK Emirates Skywards credit cards, issued by MBNA.)

Under each option you are asked what annual fee you would pay. This is a bizarre question, to be honest, since virtually the only difference between the three options is the size of the first year sign-up bonus. After the first year, the three options are fundamentally the same.

After I responded to that question I got this, which is more interesting from a reward perspective (click to enlarge):

However, you are still only getting 1 mile per £1 on core UK spending. Emirates wanted to know if £200+ would be an acceptable annual fee for such a card.

Is this proposition going to fly?

It’s not going to be easy, put it that way.

In the new world of 0.3% interchange fees, you need to think beyond the traditional concept of an arms-length partnership, where you simply sell miles to a bank partner.

For example:

  • Barclaycard is using its Avios credit cards to bring in a young(er) and relatively wealthy group of people to the bank, as its core customer base continues to age. It is happy to take a loss on the credit cards if it means it can cross-sell other products, especially Barclays Premier.
  • Virgin Atlantic formed a full joint venture company with Virgin Money to launch its credit cards. Instead of simply selling Virgin Points to the bank, the two companies have a complex deal which shares income from interest payments, FX spending and annual fees. This allows Virgin Red to sell points to the JV very cheaply.

At the moment Emirates doesn’t give the impression of being willing to go this far. This is why the proposition outlined in this survey isn’t competitive given the fees being suggested.

I assume that the Emirates customer base is heavily leisure driven and unlikely to be used to paying for credit cards.

I suggest that any new Skywards card needs to have a free option and, if there is a paid version on top, it should focus on benefits of interest to ‘once a year’ Emirates flyers – lounge access, priority check-in, priority boarding etc. The hard 3-year miles expiry rule may also need to be waived.

Emirates needs to see any UK card as a way of enhancing customer loyalty and not simply as a way of selling miles to a bank.

In the meantime, we have a complete guide to earning Emirates Skywards miles from UK credit cards which you can find here.

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How to earn Emirates Skywards miles from UK credit cards

How to earn Emirates Skywards miles from UK credit cards (April 2025)

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:

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on the ‘free for a year’ American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card is increased from 20,000 Membership Rewards points to 30,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (30,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

SPECIAL OFFER: Until 27th May 2025, the sign-up bonus on American Express Platinum is increased from 50,000 Membership Rewards points to a huge 80,000 points. Points convert 1:1 into Avios (80,000 Avios!) and many other programmes. Some people may see even higher personalised offers. Click here to apply.

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 American Express Preferred Rewards Gold card earns double points (2 per £1) on all flights you charge to it, not just with Emirates but with any airline.

Category

Emirates and Emirates Skywards

Comments (84)

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

  • lumma says:
    14 Jan14 January 09:36

    The two main reasons that Avios is a successful scheme in the UK are that you can get value from relatively low numbers of points on short haul and that it’s not too difficult to save up enough for something aspirational.

    These proposals have neither

    • Rob says:
      14 Jan14 January 09:41

      Bingo.

    • Chrisasaurus says:
      14 Jan14 January 09:51

      Further to that, silver status is likely of little value to the one niche cohort that might appreciate the card – namely existing Emirates customers who by the nature of their network are flying long haul and easily qualifying Silver already

  • Paul says:
    14 Jan14 January 09:42

    EK should stop wasting their time on this it’ll never fly!

    Aside from being rubbish deal the J product on EK isn’t great and it’s an airline I avoid. If I really do need to fly them there is the transfer from Amex option.

  • Pogonation says:
    14 Jan14 January 09:46

    Yawn! Useless credit card from the most overrated airline currently serving planet earth.

  • ankomonkey says:
    14 Jan14 January 09:53

    Was one of the survey questions “And which financial provider would you consider to be a good partner for Emirates? 1. Amex, 2. Creation, 3. Someone else”?

  • JK says:
    14 Jan14 January 10:00

    The options set out are uninspiring, just nowhere competitive enough to tempt people to switch from BA Amex. The sign up bonuses are low even on the premium card which will come with a chunky fee.
    It would need to be a very strong card to beat the Amex BA premium card. Firstly the 2-4-1 voucher earned each year makes family reward much more accessible. Then the choice of destinations on BA is much more relevant to UK customers, with huge number of easy short haul reward saver flights. BA very strong on trans-Atlantic routes. Emirates would be better for Asian and Aus / NZ destinations given BA’s lack of interest in that direction. But number of miles that be needed for these is going to be enormous especially if you want to go as a family. With BA there are still ways to accumulate Avios without flying making the long haul and premium cabins much more accessible.
    When I had some Emirates miles before I remember using them to get money off EasyJet and getting Arsenal tickets.

    • Rob says:
      14 Jan14 January 10:24

      There is a market outside London for an Emirates card, I think – but the demographics of those markets means a £200 fee for a premium card will struggle.

      • TooPoorToBeHere says:
        14 Jan14 January 13:53

        Strong agree.

        They’re not going to get many takers in the MAN demographic for “£20 a month to earn a useless amount of miles which then expire before you can redeem”.

        Free card that earns a £100 voucher if a spend threshold is hit, maybe.

  • Greenpen says:
    14 Jan14 January 10:04

    Article made me wonder why I fly QR quite a bit but rarely Emirates. It is the link to Avios. Apart from a chunky bonus just credit card spend would not generate sufficient air miles for me on one carrier.

    So, join *A and the world will flock to your card Emirates!!

  • Jake says:
    14 Jan14 January 10:08

    @Rob: What I don’t understand is why no one yet really thinks outside of the box? All new cards seem to be either a) the same as other offerings or b) incremental change (think BA v Virgin voucher).

    When you speak with your contacts, what driver do they give for everything being fairly static? My issue is that I think airlines think their cards have to be profitable in their own right rather than a wider tool for driving engagement, marketing and sales.

    For example – I’d love to see something like Emirates fee-bearing card holders getting access to an auction for business class seats. Obviously Emirates control the routes, dates and number of seats (but offer some guarantee) but as a way of filling up seats, generating engagement and positive social media stories (you only need a few bargains to be ‘won’ and hit the press) then surely that creates a longer term profit than offering a mediocre card?

    • Rob says:
      14 Jan14 January 10:23

      Airlines (and hotel groups) need to start broadening their thinking, yes. As the article says, simply hoping you can see a pile of miles to a bank in a one way transaction no longer cuts it.

      • Jake says:
        14 Jan14 January 10:25

        Agreed – lets see what 2024 holds!…

        • tony says:
          14 Jan14 January 12:37

          Surely the issue here is whether EK see this as a way to attract new customers or just realise more ££ from the existing client base. Their mileage requirements are so high and the fees so punchy that I can’t imagine anyone opening this card as the first step. Bit like the slew of CCs we saw issued by football clubs and the like maybe 20 years ago. Just a way of monetising a mailing list they already have. (I know GDPR makes it more complicated than that, but the concept still holds)

    • CamFlyer says:
      14 Jan14 January 13:27

      If they want to bring in new customers, they need something to appeal to those with small numbers of points or more limited (but not insignificant) travel, not just high spenders. For me, the Creation IHG card did this very well ; I had never collected IHG points, but realized that with the annual free night voucher it was worthwhile to collect points, and shifted spend from other chains to IHG. While easier for a hotel (as the value of a hotel night voucher is less than a flight) something like a shorter track to elite or space available upgrade vouchers for hitting spending targets could be quite valuable (if they can handle the masses of uk cardholders complaining about lack of availability over half term holidays).

  • MF176 says:
    14 Jan14 January 10:23

    Hard expiry on the points would be the biggest turn off for me here. Loyalty schemes should be trying to hook you in for life, not piss you off after a relatively short window by wiping your points.

    • Sam says:
      14 Jan14 January 12:04

      Precisely why I don’t bother with Skywards. Even their equivalent ‘BA Household’ account only allow you to pool together future miles, not existing. Who honestly out there wastes their time with this.

      • exp70 says:
        14 Jan14 January 18:46

        Same with Singapore Airlines, once you experience losing points you want to make keep and use, its a huge deterrent from using them again.

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