The Emirates frequent flyer program has just introduced award redemption on its partner JetBlue. It’s easy to get Emirates points. And the award prices for JetBlue’s ‘Mint’ business class are surprisingly reasonable. You can often book JetBlue business class seats for more than one third fewer points than JetBlue would charge in its own program. This was first identified by JT Genter.
Get Emirates Points
It’s super easy to get miles in the Emirates frequent flyer program.
- Emirates Skywards is a transfer partner of American Express, Chase, Citibank, and Capital One. All the major bank currencies transfer to Emirates.
- You can even transfer points from new free program Bilt which gives you points for paying your rent and they will even give you points for linking your Emirates account to the program.
- And Emirates has a U.S. credit card with 60,000 point bonus offer now.
There are plenty of other ways to get Emirates points, too, such as transfers from Marriott.
JetBlue’s New Business Class Seat, Not Available Yet On Most Routes
Prices for Redeeming JetBlue Travel
Emirates has a distance-based award chart for travel on JetBlue:
| Distance (miles) | Economy | Business | ||
| 0-250 | 8,000 | 16,000 | ||
| 251-500 | 10,000 | 20,000 | ||
| 501-1,000 | 14,000 | 28,000 | ||
| 1,001-2,000 | 20,000 | 40,000 | ||
| 2,001-3,000 | 26,000 | 52,000 | ||
| 3,001-4,000 | 32,000 | 64,000 | ||
| 4,001-5,000 | 38,000 | 76,000 | ||
| 5,001-6,000 | 44,000 | 88,000 | ||
| 6,001-7,000 | 50,000 | 100,000 | ||
| 7,001-15,000 | 60,000 | 120,000 |
Routes like New York JFK – Los Angeles (or LA-Miami or Boston – San Francisco) run 52,000 miles each way, while New York JFK – London will be 64,000 miles. New York JFK – Aruba would be 40,000 miles.
Do an advanced award search on the Emirates website and select to search partner award travel. You have to search individual dates and can’t use flexible search. Over the phone Emirates will even place awards on hold for you pending transfer of points.
Awards book into “I” for business class (“Mint”) and “P” for economy. This can be searched at Expertflyer.com when doing a revenue fare availability search.
Best use I had of EK points was an at-airport upgrade. Nearly full flight from JFK-ATH they wanted $900 or 30,000 points. Coach to Biz for 30,000 from a coach award ticket when Biz class awards weren’t available SOLD. Ill take 2 one way upgrades to Europe over a 5 hour flight on Mint.
Jetblue has a $650 YR each way on JFK-LHR. Does Emirates pass this cost on? You, FM, and Genter’s post don’t say anything about it either way.
Fuel surcharges?
If you buy the JetBlue flight with emeritus points, do you earn JetBlue points/Mosaic points for the flight as if it were booked through Amex/Chase/OTA? Or is is treated more like a points transfer?
I appreciate that this is a relative sweet spot for easily *poolable* currency, but I’m otherwise not seeing the value.
Mint is currently selling for $1000 each way JFK-LHR (on a round-trip ticket, natch); if I used my 60k points towards the purchase of the ticket at $0.015 per point, I would get more value that way AND I would earn miles and elite status in the process.
It should be mentioned that when you transfer Capital One points to Emirates miles, the transfer rate sucks – 2 points gets you 1 mile. Just sayin…
This is really helpful, Gary. Thanks for sharing. Two questions:
1) As others are asking, are EY passed on?
2) Is pricing per segment, or per trip? Can I add a DCA-JFK leg for the same number of miles as long as I stay in the same band? Assume others outside of JFK and BOS will be wondering the same thing.
Can I earn loyalty points for the Mint Upgrade?