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This year, Emirates Skywards fuel surcharges have increased several times for awards flights, bringing into question the value of Skywards miles. Let's take a look at the changes and what they mean for award travelers.
Emirates Award Fuel Surcharges Surge
As the cost of flights worldwide hit new heights, so are the surcharges on award flights. Perhaps not with all airlines, but Emirates seems to be leading the way.
In January 2022, a flight from Los Angeles to Dubai in business class had a surcharge of under $200 each way. Now that same route has a surcharge of $817, whether you book for next month or next year. Flying in reverse from Dubai to LAX has a surcharge of $885.
Other routes have similarly outrageous surcharges. London to Dubai comes with a $666 surcharge. Even short flights have inflated surcharges, such as an additional $468 when flying Rome to Dubai.
How to Generate Emirates Skywards Miles
There are several ways to convert points to Emirates Skywards miles. You can transfer points to Emirates Skywards from:
- Chase Ultimate Rewards
- American Express Membership Rewards
- Citi ThankYou Points
- Capital One Venture or Spark Miles
- Marriott Bonvoy points
Chase, Amex, Citi, and CapOne points transfer to Emirates at a 1:1 ratio, and Marriott Bonvoy transfers at a 3:1 ratio with a 5,000-mile bonus for transferring at least 60,000 points.
However, the question is whether you would want to transfer your points into Skywards miles at this time. With the enormous fuel surcharges, it might be better to pay cash for a flight with Emirates or skip them altogether at this point in the hope that fuel surcharges will drop down at some point.
Our Take
Only time will tell whether the fuel surcharges come back down if and when the price of fuel drops (unlikely) and if other airlines follow suit (likely). We've already seen British Airways significantly increase fuel surcharges this year. These changes make airline programs that don't add fees and surcharges to award flights even more valuable.
Of course, this really comes down to how each member handles their miles, what trips you have coming up, etc. Would you still get an awards flight with Emirates, despite the steep fuel surcharge? Are you going to hold off for now? Or have you given up faith in the Emirates Skywards program?
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That’s interesting: I just (June 28th) booked the first class flight from Athens to Newark (sadly, not on A380) for the end of October and it cost me 85k miles + $125.45.
This Situation its going to last until the Oil prices stabilize. We should get aware that is going to be for a couple of years
I was considering taking the JFK-MXP route for the first time flying Emirates, as I wanted to catch a ride on the A380 before it goes extinct, but there’s almost no available business award seats at the saver level on that route at the moment, and the YQ surcharges for economy make it a non-starter. It’s only a couple hundred bucks more to buy the ticket in cash. I’m simply going to wait on the sidelines and wait for the right opportunity.
Purchasing an economy ticket on Emirates and then using miles to upgrade to business class, should avoid fuel surcharges. Also, Emirates offers very reasonable cash upgrades. Like $200-300 for an upgrade from economy to business at check-in.