Emirates No Longer Able To Book JetBlue Business Class Awards

by Gary Leff

A year ago Emirates introduced the ability to book award travel on JetBlue. Awards could be booked online, and over the phone they’d even put award space on hold for you to transfer points. And all the major credit card currencies transfer into Emirates Skywards plus they have their own U.S. credit card.

The pricing was good – cheaper, for instance, than using American AAdvantage miles on JetBlue. Routes like New York JFK – Los Angeles (or LA-Miami or Boston – San Francisco) ran 52,000 miles each way, while New York JFK – Aruba would be 40,000 miles.

Unfortunately this is no longer possible. Emirates only returns results for economy now. Over the phone agents can create a business class award reservation by long-selling “I” (business class “Mint”) when space is available, but they cannot price it or ticket it.


JetBlue’s New Mint Product

The Emirates-JetBlue partnership now only seems to allow economy redemptions. That still supports the majority of JetBlue flights which are economy-only. They only operate single-cabin aircraft on routes from my home airport, for instance. But one of the great redemption options, a way to save miles versus transferring points directly to JetBlue or using other partner miles, appears to be no more.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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  1. JetBlue MINT should stay a premium product as they upgrade old aircraft to suites. Nothing destroys premium more than giving it away for cheap ! You can redeem TrueBlue points , but it’s .01 per point.

  3. Mint & EK fifth freedom awards were the only value left in Skywards. Super disappointing. When they released their new US credit cards, they talked a big game.

  4. So happy I have 280,000 miles tied up with EK. Fifth freedom flights are the only option now that this has vanished and fuel surcharges are cost prohibitive on other routes.

  5. Still listed on their website along with a nice photo with the headline “Experience Mint using your Skywards Miles”. Possibility it’s a temporary glitch? Do you have contacts with EK to confirm?

    https://www.emirates.com/us/english/skywards/partners/jetblue/

    I’ve got 100k+ EK miles that will now be stranded if this is indeed a no notice devaluation. Such a consumer unfriendly way to do business if this is indeed the case.

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