After reporting record profits earlier this week, Emirates will restrict first class awards to its own elite frequent flyers. There may be at least two workarounds, but this is a monumental development in the evolution of Emirates’ first class product.
Emirates Restricts First Class Awards To Skywards Platinum, Gold, and Silver Members
As flagged by One Mile At A Time, Emirates Skywards just announced that it will limit award tickets in first class to elite members. As of Monday, May 12, 2025, first class awards “will be a tier benefit for Platinum, Gold, and Silver members.”
The move comes with just over 24 hours of advance notice. It also comes during a period of transition with its credit card partners: Chase and American Express will temporarily pause transfers later this month while Citi has announced a devaluation (points will start transferring at a 5:4 ratio rather than a 1:1 ratio starting on July 27, 2025).
As I read it, this change does not impact your ability to upgrade to first class on the day of travel, should space be available, using your miles (even without elite status). That’s the first workaround.
Let’s discuss what might be behind this move and the dilemma Emirates faces.
Emirates Wants To Create A More Exclusive Product, But Has A Huge First Class Footprint
While carriers like Air France and Lufthansa are embracing first class but reducing its footprint by halving the cabin size (in the case of Lufthansa) or making upgrades virtually impossible (both carriers), Emirates maintains a sizeable 12-seat first class cabin across much of its fleet.
It’s also fairly easy to buy a seat (not necessarily with miles) in Emirates First Class…I cannot recall ever being on an Emirates flight with the first class cabin full. That’s not to say that Emirates has ever done business the “American way” (fill up premium cabins with elite upgrades and if space is still available, staff members flying non-rev), but this isn’t quite like Air France, SWISS, or Lufthansa where the scarcity of supply is a natural barrier to entry.
While understandable that Emirates would want to make the first class experience more exclusive for those who pay for it and limit those pesky “influencers” (yes, I might be one of them), it’s really not cheap to fly in Emirates First Class. You need a lot of Emirates Skywards miles or even more Air Canada Aeroplan points.
This move should make space easier for those Skywards elites who are loyal to Emirates, but since seats have never really been given away (at least ever since Alaska Airlines massively devalued redemption pricing many years ago), I don’t see the threat of the product being cheapened by allowing in Skywards non-elites.
A Credit Card Workaround
Beyond upgrading, there is another workaround: elite status via credit card spending. Emirates partners with Barclays in the USA, offering two card products:
- Basic ($99 annual fee card) comes with Silver status the first year (and Silver status beyond that for spending at least $20,000/year on the card)
- Premium ($499 annual fee card) comes with Gold status the first year (and Gold status beyond that for spending at least $40,000/year on the card)
Coaxing more people to sign up for the Emirates co-branded credit card is certainly part of the equation for Emirates and indeed, I’ll consider this card product personally, simply because I have some Emirates points that I would like to use for first class.
CONCLUSION
Earlier today, having no idea this Emirates announcement was coming, I speculated about whether Lufthansa First Class awards would continue to be available after the big changes to Miles & More starting next month. Now I am convinced that they will be restricted.
I did not see this move from Emirates’ coming, but it actually comes as no surprise if we look at the way Skywards has evolved over the years and the way loyalty programs in general have evolved. At least there are still a couple of ways (for now…) to get Emirates First Class.
I have to say that, while I have no interest in flying EK anytime soon (and, come to think of it, I have never flown them in the past either), I don’t see this as a negative development. After flying KLM a few days ago, I got it invited to participate in a customer satisfaction survey in which I evaluated the Flying Blue programme as ‘poor’, and was subsequently prompted to explain why, at which point I stated that I am not particularly interested in engaging with a programme whose management has publicly stated that they’re mostly aiming to capture transferrable points from people who don’t regularly fly with their airlines, and that I would much rather stick to the European Star Alliance members who have a more ‘traditional’ focus on frequent flyers. I’m an accidental silver and they may well ignore my comments, but I am sure that some customers who are infinitely more important than myself will be making the same sort of remarks. It’s not surprising that some airlines are realising they went too far in trying to capture US credit card revenue.
This is yet another attack by a foreign carrier on specifically U.S. redemptions. And it directly relates to credit cards. The reality is that U.S. flyers overwhelm the system with redemptions. No matter how expensive they make them they still keep coming given all the points we carry compared to other countries. EK sees a path in which it can alleviate those using other credit cards and steer people towards its own. As frustrating as it is I can kind of see their goal here.
However, with that said, as everyone else points out, the reality is that even with these redemptions originating out of the U.S. I have only ever seen once, after around 15 flights in F, the cabin entirely full. Most times it’s two or three of us in a 14 seat F. My personal feeling is that a few powerful Emirati have been complaining about Americans and influencers in the cabins and wanting it to feel more exclusive. Combine that with a way to steer people to their cards and they created this path to connect the dots.
I guess the one upside to this will be a lot more seats open in EK F for those willing to get the Barclay card.
Correct, US flyers are the worst.
I would love to see AA/UA restrict J redemptions to elite members and then actually open some space at reasonable redemption levels. For many reasons, this is unlikely, but it would add tremendous value to elite status that has become less valuable every year.