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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.

  • meta says:
    14 Jan14 January 10:29

    Even with the top sign up bonus of 20k miles on the paid card, you would need to spend additional £88k to get a return business class ticket.

  • qrfan says:
    14 Jan14 January 10:31

    What drives the assumption that the emirates customer base is leisure driven? Not arguing, just interested. Their pricing always seems quite high so I assumed there were a lot of APAC-focussed corporates with deals to fill the tonne of A380 business capacity out of heathrow?

  • No longer Entitled says:
    14 Jan14 January 10:39

    Dear HfP,

    Such generalised comments about life outside of London nearly made me spill my morning bubbles.

    Love,

    The Cheshire set.

    • Ben says:
      14 Jan14 January 13:22

      I get the tips complaint in the USA, however it’s the same here. Most restaurants add 12%-15% tip automatically on a bill nowadays and that includes tipping the VAT.

      In the US you don’t tip the sales tax just the food and beverage cost. So if your bill is £100 here that’s £74.4 food and drink. Ie less service 12% less VAT 20%. In the US £74.4 + 20% is £88.28.

      But in the US prices have got out of control and when u take into account the exchange rate, I’m amazed how full the planes are for leisure.

      • CamFlyer says:
        14 Jan14 January 13:33

        In the days before inflated tip rates and automatic calculations, many of us did tip on tax in the US. A tip of 15-18% on the with tax amount is however usually close to 18-20% pre-tax. And on my recent US visit, I discovered that in some places sales tax (or sales tax + local restaurant tax ) was 10% or more, rather than the 6-7% I’m accustomed to historically in most states.

      • Rui N. says:
        14 Jan14 January 21:27

        Having lived in the US for over one decade, never seen anyone calculating bill pre-tax lol

  • David S says:
    14 Jan14 January 11:16

    I’d love a card that gets me to Asia more frequently. I simply don’t want to go the USA nowadays- it’s sooo expensive and to be honest the quality of the average hotel is so much better in Asia. Also it avoids the ridiculous level of Tips which aren’t related to the level of service received

  • The Savage Squirrel says:
    14 Jan14 January 11:42

    It takes a while to save a decent sum using credit card spend. If they’re wanting to suck in new less frequent customers (and they are, otherwise what’s the point of the whole thing?) then the 3-yr expiry needs to be dropped; or waived for CC holders. Any hard expiry scheme is a hard no from me – it actively drives away not-super-frequent but potentially decent members to any loyalty scheme – exactly the nearly-but-not-quite-loyal-to-you marginal cases you’re seeking to retain – a primary re1son your scheme exists! It’s the reason I won’t even look at Singapore’s scheme and just credit to Virgin, despite flying Singapore more frequently.

    Maybe it makes sense to the finance dept in terms of wiping off balance sheet liabilities but if your scheme needs to do this then maybe it’s set up wrong to start…

    • Rob says:
      14 Jan14 January 11:55

      Totally agree

      • Dan says:
        14 Jan14 January 13:42

        Especially outside the home market. Most people would keep a BA scheme going (+ oneworld) if it expired but not sure with emirates.

    • Super Secret Stuff says:
      14 Jan14 January 16:04

      I agree and to be honest, is the main reason why I wouldn’t take it, the offering is average at best but it’s emirates and I love the a380. It has that level of appeal that just attracts people.

      But what’s the point if my valence will be wiped again? (Already lost 10k miles to this rule, it’s counter productive)

    • Mark says:
      14 Jan14 January 16:42

      Yep, fingers burnt with the Singapore Krisflyer scheme having substantially topped up some earnings from a Lufthansa flight using Amex points, for a specific redemption we never actually managed to used due to Covid. And because they were credited to the scheme just prior to the start of Covid we only got a six month last minute extension and ended up cashing some out to Marriott points. It turned out to be the worst decision in 20 years of miles and points earning and burning – I won’t do that again in a hurry…

      • meta says:
        15 Jan15 January 00:13

        You should have booked something and kept your ticket alive. I just kept rebooking and rebooking my F ticket for free. Then I did a rebooking again last year to fly F this year, but had to pay the fee. It was only $75.

    • Jonathan says:
      14 Jan14 January 18:36

      Hard expiry policies are nearly exclusive to the airlines in Star Alliance, bizarrely enough it’s few and far between where you’ll find a program that has a BAEC / VSFC (type) policy on points expiry

  • Joshua Critchley says:
    14 Jan14 January 14:56

    Any scheme that sends Essex off on Emirates and preserves BA First cabin for fellow Etonians and the ruling class is a rather good thing.
    The analysis misses that super intangible benefit for those that don’t do nouveau riche tat on foreign airlines.

    • Rob says:
      14 Jan14 January 17:05

      You’ve got to be a bit of mug to pay for BA F when Emirates will give you a private suite with £500 bottles of wine on tap from Stansted …

      • Jonathan says:
        14 Jan14 January 18:38

        Probably half the reason that BA aren’t concentrating on their F offerings these days, although you don’t have to fly to DXB, the routes where it’s available is heavily limited

  • Joe says:
    14 Jan14 January 16:24

    Just moved to the US. Always knew the points game was better here but it is literally insane. Signed up for a ‘Chase Freedom Unlimited’ recently which effectively guarantees me 9% back in rewards on restaurants and drug store purchases for the next year and 15% on travel booked through their own portal. Completely different world. Now I have a US credit score doubt I’ll ever bother opening another rewards card in the UK. The best arbitrage on points is to get yourself a US SSN, grab a 0% forex card, and spend away.

    • CamFlyer says:
      14 Jan14 January 16:53

      That only works if one has US$ income to settle the bills. If one’s income is in £, then putting card spend through US$ is an arbitrage on £ / US$ movements. There is also always a spread even on 0% forex cards, charged by the payment network itself; 0% forex just means that the card issuer doesn’t add anything additional. I have a former colleague who did earn in £ and pay on US$ cards, but myself I won’t take the headache and risk. If i could speculate on FX movements i would be in a different business (and likely far more highly compensated for it).

      • Joe says:
        15 Jan15 January 17:45

        Yes, it probably helps if one has US$ income to settle the bills. But completely disagree with the idea you need to be some FX trader to make this work. I personally think the delta in rewards more than compensates for a bit of FX risk. I’m getting 9% min back at restaurants, even abroad. Fairly easy to make things work within that margin.

    • Harry says:
      15 Jan15 January 23:01

      Can a US SSN be obtained even if don’t live in US?
      And even if can get a SSN whilst living and working in UK, is it that easy to open US credit cards with not credit history in the US?
      Does getting a SSN mean that need to complete a US tax return and liable for taxes there?

      • Joe says:
        16 Jan16 January 02:48

        Only certain visa categories can receive an SSN. So realistically you need to have had a visa and been employed and lived there for a period of time. An SSN in and of itself probably doesn’t create a tax liability so much as your residency, employment status etc. If you have an SSN it’s pretty easy to get a credit card even with no credit history. I just chucked a reasonable deposit in a bank account to approve for this card, but I believe even a couple of hundred dollars in an account will do it. You won’t get the best cards, but you’ll start building a credit history to get them later.

  • Ali M says:
    14 Jan14 January 17:08

    I would keenly jump on it just because my major travel is east ward – family , holidays. The silver status’s 12 kg extra allowance means can export more Nutella and British things home for friends and family which usually done have the allowance on – lol. So rather than paying extra at the airport, will pay a fee for this card and get additional benefit too.
    plus Emirates economy is wayyy better than Virgin or BA economy IMHO (elated to use IMHO personally for the first time)

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