Canadian Kilometers notes yesterday that Mileage Plan miles can be redeemed for travel on Emirates to Europe. This isn’t actually new and has been the case since the partnership formed, but it’s probably a good time to post a reminder of it since Emirates launched service between New York and Milan earlier this week.
Anyway, the Mileage Plan award chart for travel on Emirates to Europe looks as follows:
As you’ll note the redemption costs seem high, and that’s probably because you can route from the US to Europe via Dubai with a stopover there.
So while you could redeem for the nonstop New York to Milan flight for 75,000 miles in business class or 100,000 miles in first class one-way…
For the same cost you could actually fly from New York to Dubai (that flight stops in Milan), then have a stopover in Dubai, and then fly back to Milan.
Though my favorite one-way redemption to Europe on Emirates would incorporate their new A380 service to Los Angeles, which will be the world’s longest A380 flight when it launches in December. You can’t beat flying Los Angeles to Dubai in A380 first class, having a stopover, and then flying from Dubai to Amsterdam, London, Munich, or Paris, which are some of Emirates’ A380 destinations in Europe.
But the moral of the story is that if you’re looking to redeem just for travel between New York and Milan you’re much better off trying to accrue Japan Airlines miles, as I noted in this post. Since they have a distance based award chart they charge just 65,000 miles roundtrip in business class or 100,000 miles roundtrip in first class. They are transfer partners with Starwood, so you get a 5,000 point bonus for every 20,000 points transferred.
@ Matt -- If you live in the US and ever fly American or Delta I'd probably still credit to Alaska. While it may be fewer miles, they'll be more useful and can more easily be combined with miles from other sources (credit card sign-up bonuses, Starwood transfers, topping off an account, etc.).
I'm thinking of booking the JFK-Milan sale fare and trying to decide how to credit miles. It looks like I could do it to Alaska and get 5,625 miles as an MVP and credit towards status. But, Emirates has a 2500 mile sign up bonus, 20% bonus for family member's flights and 1500 mile refer-a-friend so I could earn 9,500 Skywards miles and my significant other could earn another 6,250. We don't have a use...
I'm thinking of booking the JFK-Milan sale fare and trying to decide how to credit miles. It looks like I could do it to Alaska and get 5,625 miles as an MVP and credit towards status. But, Emirates has a 2500 mile sign up bonus, 20% bonus for family member's flights and 1500 mile refer-a-friend so I could earn 9,500 Skywards miles and my significant other could earn another 6,250. We don't have a use for Emirates, but might be worth it to almost have two one-ways on Jetblue.
@ B-rad -- Unfortunately not that I know of. :(
Stephan -- You can stay for as long as you'd like. Alaska allows stopovers on one way awards, so you can have a stopover on both the outbound and return if you'd like.
Is there a good way to get Amex MR points into Alaska for this type of an award? It would be a bucket-list trip for me to fly LAX-AMS via Dubai on the A380 =)
Is the stop over just a <24hr connection or can you actually spend a couple of days in Dubai? How about on the way back?
@ Charles -- I guess it really depends what your goal is. American and United are incredibly valuable for Asia as well, so it just depends on where in Asia you're going and which airlines you most want to fly.
I have 200k of Wyndham points, want to transfer to miles, do you think Alaska, and JAL are better than United, or AA? I mostly want to fly US to Asia.
@Lucky
the website search allows EWR-SEA-DXB... so I don't see why not...
@ Lantean -- It depends somewhat on the agent, though not sure they'd allow transcon backtracking in the wrong direction.
I think for an Alaska award you can actually do WAS-LAX-stop-DXB-stop-LHR all in F, all on one award combo Alaska/Emirates... am I right?
@Lucky - not just Emirates. I'll have to revisit the JAL chart again. But wouldn't mind seeing another post one of these days on some of the foreign carrier mileage programs and where they offer good deals, especially in Business Class.
@ carl -- They have many sweet spots, all depends where you want to go. Are you talking about for travel on Emirates? They also charge just 85,000 miles for business class between New York and Dubai, which is a phenomenal value as well.
Doesn't JAL also have some other sweet spots in their award chart, especially for Business Class? I seem to recall Steve Belkin discussing them at some point at one of the seminars a couple years ago. I think Turkish had a sweet spot as well for one of their regions.
Great article, Lucky. I should point out that the routes you discuss (Dubai/Milan) from the US are 777 routes, so no showers.........also, for West Coast folks, it makes the travel to NYC difficult..LAX to Dubai will be A380, as you mentioned.
@ Alex -- Nope, Japan Airlines partners with Emirates, and not ANA.
Isn't it ANA, not Japan airlines?
@ Pointsloverrrrr -- Generally quite good, it's not unusual to see two first class award seats on the route.
How does F class award availability look overall on this route?