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 month.

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 chunk need to be used quickly.

There are other options for expiring Emirates Skywards miles.  Whilst the Heathrow Rewards partnership recently ended, Emirates added a new option to convert Skywards miles into Accor Live Limitless hotel points.

You could also look at using expiring Emirates Skywards miles as part-payment towards a hotel booking or for some Arsenal football tickets – although VIP tickets are now restricted to Gold members of Skywards.

We published a complete guide to earning Emirates Skywards miles from UK credit cards which you can find here.

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 easyJet cash price to the Skywards miles required:

• £88.99 or 18,179 miles
• £68.99 or 14,579 miles
• £174.64 or 33,596 miles

In these examples you are getting 0.49p, 0.47p and 0.52p per mile respectively.  This isn’t a bad deal, to be honest, if you have no other use for the miles.

The upside is that you can book any easyJet flight, on any day.  No blackouts, no restrictions – although you cannot book flights which connect onto another airline, and of course busier flights will require more miles.

It’s worth noting that Emirates has substantially improved this deal in the last year or so. For many years you were only getting around 0.27p per mile, so it has got a lot more generous.

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 (March 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:

• 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.

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.

• The Platinum Card from American Express (review here, apply here) – sign-up bonus of 50,000 Membership Rewards points converts into 37,500 Emirates Skywards miles

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.

• 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 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.