Here’s a change that I’m really excited to see, though it doesn’t yet appear to be working as promised.
In this post:
Emirates Skywards improves FlyDubai award options
Emirates and FlyDubai are both owned by the government of Dubai, but are operated independently. If you ask me, a merger between the two airlines makes sense, but that’s neither here nor there. Over the years, the airlines have started cooperating more closely, though, given their largely complementary route networks.
For example, in 2018, FlyDubai discontinued its own OPEN loyalty program, and instead adopted the Emirates Skywards program. What’s annoying is that Emirates Skywards redemptions on FlyDubai have been an outright awful value, especially compared to redeeming on Emirates.
Up until now, the only way to redeem Skywards miles on FlyDubai has been using the Cash+Miles feature directly through FlyDubai’s website, and the value just isn’t good. For example, take a one-way FlyDubai business class flight from Dubai to Belgrade, with a fare of $1,726.
If I were to redeem my 69,179 Skywards miles toward the ticket, I’d save $540 off the cost of a ticket, as these are revenue based redemptions that get you well under a cent per mile. No thanks!
So there’s a positive update on this front — Emirates has announced that it’s now possible to redeem Skywards miles for Classic Rewards on all FlyDubai flights, across all cabins, subject to award availability. This complements the existing Cash+Miles redemption option.
This is awesome, because if there’s award space available, it means you’ll be able to book seats on FlyDubai at a much more attractive cost. The option to redeem Cash+Miles remains, but again, that’s not a very good value.
Using the above Dubai to Belgrade example, a FlyDubai business class award would cost 108,000 miles roundtrip (for Business Saver), or 87,000 miles one-way (for Business Flex), before taxes and carrier imposed surcharges. Given the lack of other ways to get a deal on FlyDubai business class, this is pretty awesome.
These redemptions don’t seem to be live yet, though?
Emirates claims that these redemptions on FlyDubai are now available on emirates.com. This announcement was made on Tuesday, so these redemptions should be live for a few days now.
However, I can’t actually pull up any of this availability online with Emirates, whether through the website or mobile app. The flights just don’t appear when searching awards, and when searching a destination only served by FlyDubai, the destination field “unpopulates” when selecting an award redemption.
Am I missing something, or has this just not been rolled out yet?
Bottom line
Emirates Skywards is finally introducing traditional award redemptions on FlyDubai, roughly seven years after the carrier adopted Skywards as its program. Up until now, only Cash+Miles redemptions have been possible, and they haven’t represented a good deal.
I’m very happy to see this update, though based on what I can see, these redemptions aren’t working properly yet.
What do you make of Skywards rolling out Classic Rewards on FlyDubai?
I recently (like last Month) passed up an opportunity while in Dubai to head out and stay at the new St. Regis Red Sea. The cash flight for business class was almost $2000 USD and coach being $1300 USD on Fly Dubai. I looked at the idea of using Skywards points but as documented in this article the redemption was nothing short of a rape. This is long overdue!
Will you be able to do a mixed Emirates/FlyDubai award now?
Not familiar with this program that much...so one can only book business savers when booking round trip awards and only business flex pricing is available on oneway awards?
@ LOA -- That's correct.