Unfortunately Emirates Skywards’ one useful premium cabin partner award redemption option has been discontinued…
In this post:
You can no longer redeem Emirates miles for JetBlue Mint
Emirates and JetBlue have a partnership, and as part of that they’ve offered reciprocal points earning & redemption opportunities. Arguably the best opportunity available was being able to redeem Emirates Skywards miles for travel in JetBlue Mint (which is JetBlue’s excellent business class):
- Emirates Skywards is transfer partners with all major transferable points currencies, so these miles are easy to come by
- Emirates Skywards had great award availability in JetBlue Mint, as availability lined up with “I” class inventory
- Award pricing was quite attractive — for example, you could redeem 64,000 Skywards miles for a one-way Mint ticket between New York and London
Unfortunately this is officially no longer possible (even though Emirates’ website hasn’t been updated) — as of late June 2022, Emirates Skywards can no longer book JetBlue Mint award tickets. JetBlue economy awards continue to be bookable with Emirates Skywards, but Mint tickets aren’t.
That’s a shame. While Emirates Skywards is primarily a useful program for the ability to redeem miles for travel in Emirates first & business class, the ability to redeem for JetBlue Mint was the one valuable premium cabin partner redemption opportunity.
Why would JetBlue Mint redemptions be cut off?
What would cause Emirates Skywards to no longer have access to JetBlue Mint redemptions? I think it’s safe to say that this was probably Skywards’ most popular partner redemption, so I think there are a couple of possible explanations:
- It’s possible that Emirates Skywards no longer wanted to spend the money reimbursing JetBlue for these tickets, as the program decided these redemptions were more costly than people redeeming for travel on Emirates
- It’s possible that JetBlue decided that it no longer wanted so many Mint seats being booked through Emirates Skywards, and that the reciprocal frequent flyer redemption agreement was becoming too one-sided, with Skywards members benefiting more
I think it’s much more likely that JetBlue is behind this change, rather than Emirates, as JetBlue probably understandably didn’t want so many seats being booked through a partner. Emirates has taken a similar approach with many of its partners, by cutting off first class awards, and saving them for Skywards members.
Keep in mind that American AAdvantage continues to have access to JetBlue award tickets. However:
- It’s not possible to redeem AAdvantage miles for travel on JetBlue to & from Europe
- Redemption rates through American AAdvantage are higher than through Emirates Skywards
- American & JetBlue have a much closer and more significant partnership than JetBlue & Emirates
Bottom line
Unfortunately it’s no longer possible to redeem Emirates Skywards miles for travel in JetBlue Mint. This was a great partner redemption while it lasted, but I guess it’s not too surprising that this was cut off. Fortunately economy awards are still possible, and they could represent a good deal as well.
Have you redeemed Emirates miles for travel on JetBlue?
(Tip of the hat to Henry)
FWIW, I just had success changing an existing Mint reservation that I made back in June with Emirates miles. Switched to a different day, also an (I) fare class. Definitely an edge case, but hope it's helpful for someone out there!
Tangentially related to this article, but does anyone know if it is possible to mix and match B6 and EK on a single award? E.g., home airport to JFK on B6 and JFK-MXP on EK? All on the same PNR and award ticket?
It's because they were being credited as revenue fare tickets to True Blue and AAdvantage and at full J earnings. So a 52k skywards ticket would get you over 30k back in AAdvantage if you had EP.. a bit less without it...
It was a fun run while it lasted.
These were being issued as Emirates tickets on 176 stock - why would AA ever give credit for an EK ticket?
Bad IT.. lol. Someone mentioned it on flyertalk last month and I was like there goes that.
Wow. I'm not really sure how or why AA would see a 176 ticket and ever award it anything, even with their IT.
If confirmed, this is not inconsistent with the premium product redemption practices of other airlines -- that is, it is not available to partners. Just to name a few:
- Singapore KrysSuites
- Air France first class
- American Airlines Flagship First
- British Airways first class
One might not like it, but it is not inconsistent.
"Officially" no longer possible, as confirmed by a representative of Emirates? Couldn't this simply be a temporary/tech issue?
At this point, we can no longer call this temporary, even though EK hasn't updated their site. It has been several weeks. Now the only value from EK awards are 5th freedom flights. Everything else costs tons of $ in fuel surcharges.