Emirates has one of the world’s best first class products. However booking these awards has become very challenging.

• Emirates charges quite a lot for them, both in miles and surcharges
  
• Most Emirates partners no longer have access to them. Qantas has sometimes been a viable option, while Air Canada Aeroplan awards are even more expensive still.
  
• They’ve stopped releasing more than one seat at a time in most cases, even in empty 14-seat first class cabins.

Now Emirates is going a step further. Starting May 12, 2025, they say that they will limit first class award redemption to their own elite members (Silver and above) only. We do not yet know whether this will impact Qantas members.

The airline sees their loyalty program not as a profit center, or as a way to engage a broad base of members, but as a way to reward loyal flyers.

There are some workarounds to the new elite-only restriction:

1. Status match. Emirates offers status matches – usually just to their Silver status for those without current Skywards status already (they’ll increase your tier by one level). However the usual requirement is that once you request the match that you first either take two roundtrip coach trips or one roundtrip in business class before getting the status upgrade. That makes this path undesirable for most (although someone based in Bangkok might do a Hong Kong roundtrip).

2. Upgrades instead of awards. There’s no indication as yet that mileage upgrades are restricted to elites, just award tickets. And Emirates has one of the best programs in the world for upgrades from business class to first class. They allow upgrades on awards. They allow mileage upgrades at the airport into any available first class seat (so they will fill the cabin). They have large first class cabins that don’t usually fill up. They will even allow mileage upgrades onboard the aircraft, for instance if the cabin was booked full but a first class passenger doesn’t make the flight. So book business class awards and upgrade.

3. Their credit cards come with status. Barclays issues U.S. Emirates Skywards credit cards. The $99 annual fee card comes with Silver the first year, and lets you earn it in future years for $20,000 spend. The $499 annual fee card (a bit overkill for this purpose) comes with Gold status, re-earned with $40,000 spend.

We’ll see soon enough whether the restriction applies to Qantas redemptions or not. American Express, Citibank, and Capital One all transfer to Qantas. Expect to pay 108,000 points each way New York JFK – Milan; 129,000 Newark – Athens; 150,000 East Coast – Dubai and 171,000 West Coast – Dubai (plus surcharges… if the option remains available starting Monday Dubai time.

(HT: Loyalty Lobby)