One Mile at a Time reports that Emirates has published a new restriction on first class travel. Awards and upgrades can no longer be redeemed for first class for children 8 years old or younger.
Effective as of August 15, 2015:
Please note that passengers aged 8 years old and below are ineligible for First Class Emirates Classic Rewards and Upgrade Rewards.
You can still buy children cash tickets to travel first class on Emirates. You just cannot redeem points for it. So if you pay them enough cash, they don’t mind kids. They just don’t want the ‘freeloaders’ to do it. Emirates has a very strange relationship with its frequent flyers, viewing the program not as a source of revenue but as a tool to encourage paid travel on their planes. And even there, the program is especially ungenerous.
The Emirates website, though, still allows first class awards to be booked for passengers who list their date of birth making clear they are 8 years old or younger. It’s unclear what would happen when the passengers attempt to travel (or if this just isn’t being fully enforced yet, and perhaps it will be in the future).
Bear in mind also that Emirates already restricts redeeming first class awards to their own elite members. However both of these rules apparently only apply to using Emirates Skywards points!
- A Qantas frequent flyer member (or Air Canada member, but the rates aren’t genreally as favorable) can still redeem their points for Emirates first class, without status.
- A Qantas frequent flyer member (or Air Canada member) can still redeem their points for a child under age 9 to fly Emirates first class.
- And American Express, Citi, and Capital One points transfer to Qantas, while those banks that are retaining Emirates transfer relationships are doing so at a rate of 5:4 rather than 1:1 making Qantas more favorable still.
Emirates will not allow elite members of the Skywards program to redeem first class awards when traveling with children (unless they want to leave those kids in back as an unaccompanied minor if they are at least five years old), but will allow Qantas members without status to do so. That’s odd.
And given the number of miles and cash surcharges associated with these awards, there’s often as much revenue associated with a first class redemption as with a discount first class revenue ticket.
All that said, many of you don’t like the idea of children in premium cabins feeling they (1) disturb rest, and (2) that’s appropriate for economy, because coach passengers aren’t paying for rest. On Emirates kids don’t belong in first class anymore, it seems, unless you pay enough – but they do belong in business.
I’d suggest that much of how a child acts during the flight has to do with the planning that goes into their travel – how their flying lines up with their normal schedule, what activities are prepared to keep them occupied, how they’re engaged (or not) by their parents. There are outliers, of course, but there are plenty of badly behaving passengers who have reached an age of majority!
And Emirates first class is the perfect place to squirrel away with a child who is a bit fussy. Just make a beeline for one of the two A380 spa suites, and noise isn’t going to disturb the rest of the cabin!
What do you think of this move by Emirates to ban children 8 and under from the first class cabin – unless their ticket is paid for with cash, in which case Emirates says it’s fine?
As Ben alluded to, this is all about protecting the UAE elites. Another reason I won’t fly through the ME. I’d respect an outright ban on kids in first, but this is not that, and by design.
Funny that even this won’t stop elitist leftists that will joyfully burn down US cities over election results from flying these woman hating, gay hating, discriminatory, religious zealout and most oppressive regime in the world supporting airlines. Your leftist ideals are so twisted. How do you sleep at night?
People who buy first class tickets have tons of money to spend.
Those who use points to get a first class ticket on Emirates, generally are fake millionaires.
Nevertheless, no one wants to hear someone’s 8 year old brat disturb the peace in the first class cabin. Put the monsters in the back of the plane.
When I worked at Emirates years ago, employees’ children under 16 were not permitted in the top premium cabin that their employee parents was eligible for when traveling on their staff benefits. Most employees are only eligible for business, so, in practice, that meant employees’ children under 16 had to sit in economy. Senior level employees and Captains were eligible for first, but that meant their kids under 16 could only travel up to business. My kids were both under 16 (indeed under 8) at the time, but I figured out a way to game the system so that my daughter could travel in first. She was an exceptionally well-behaved kid, so no issues. My son, not so much LOL. So we always kept him in business. I’m not a fan of arbitrary age limits because it depends so much on the individual. There are terrible 12 year olds. There are 3 year olds that are absolute angels.
To clarify the recent devaluation of the Emirates frequent flyer program, if a child eight years old and younger is a top-tier Emirates Skywards Platinum elite member traveling with or without a service dog, Emirates will restrict their elite clients from accessing first-class service, allowing only redemption in the downgraded coach cabin when using their earned Emirates Skywards Miles. This change signifies a notable devaluation of the Emirates Skywards frequent flyer program.
Kids are wonderful but nobody wants bad behavior in any cabin let alone a premium cabin
And with the cost of redeeming miles these days 500 to 900k each way sometimes paying is cheaper than using points or miles
No such thing as a free ticket except perhaps in perception
One may get value but frequently not.
I flew Emirates in first a few months ago from Milan to JFK on miles and there was family with kids who kept running up an down the aisles which was quite annoying but nevertheless, I don’t like the idea of banning kids on award tickets. FWIW, back in the day to TWA’s TWE award Itwo first class tickets to Europe for 50,000 miles plus one purchased economy ticket), I made many trips to Europe in TWA first class with a kid as young as 5. Of course, there was no running up an down tha aisles from my family. (Minor historical note: for awhile the morning TWA flight to London was a leased Gulf Air 1011 with a TWA crew. On landing at LHR, the Gulf air crew was at the gate waiting to get on.)
First on the a380 is incredible, especially the shower, but, I feel like it’s a ‘one and done’ for me (upgraded from J using 70K points earlier this year.)
However, if you can afford it, Business Class on Emirates is plenty ‘nice enough’ for anyone, including young children. It’s lie-flat for long-haul that interests me most; like, getting rest on a 10+ hour flight makes or breaks a trip. That said, I’ll sit in the back, last row, if need be. On EK, QR, SQ, etc. at least it’s sorta nice back there, decent meals, ample entertainment options.
@Mantis — Somehow you tried to make this about ‘the left’… Naw, Emirates First is not filled with ‘elite’ leftists… it’s usually a random mix of people from all over the world. Anyway, if you were wondering, I sleep like a ‘rock,’ because sleeping like a ‘baby’ doesn’t sound fun to me (crying all night, etc.)