Bad Christmas surprise, Emirates devalues Skywards points and raises award ticket prices
Like a bolt out of the blue and especially like a bad Christmas present comes Emirates' move with [...]
Emirates
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Like a bolt out of the blue and especially like a bad Christmas present comes the move by Emirates by which it Skywards points are heavily devalued, or the currency of the Dubai-based company's loyalty program.
The devaluation
As is well known Emirates does not publish a fixed award table, but applies variable pricing to redeem prize tickets, this is The second devaluation during 2022 in addition to recording a Significant increase in surcharges and fees applied to award tickets.
At the moment it would appear that Italy is not impacted by this change since a round-trip ticket still costs 141k Skywards points. Just as the price of tickets for the fifth freedom connection to New York from Milan Malpensa.
Indeed by Bologna is still possible to detach a round-trip ticket with only 104k points, remembering, however, that the route is operated with the 777 and not with the A380 as from Milan and Rome.
However, things have gotten worse in so many other nations such as for example, the Frankfurt/Dubai connection that went from 85k to 102k points each way, An increase in some cases of 20%. Also at the moment it appears that only tickets to/from Dubai are being devalued, and not those continuing to a destination other than the UAE.
Small final considerations
Third devaluation in one year is not a good sign, at the moment, however, we Italians can count ourselves lucky since our routes seem to have been saved. The conversion between points Membership Rewards and Skywards points is not the most favorable, but Emirates is definitely one of the most attractive carriers for Italian award ticket hunters. Now let's hope that it stays that way and that therefore the routes from Milan and other Italian airports remain cheaper than the rest of Europe.
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