Update on Emirates awards between New York and Milan

Does JAL allow oneway awards?

i hate to say this but with all these restrictions (no other carriers, no one ways, etc) it's really kinda useless for most... 🙁

@ John -- No they don't.

@ Lantean -- Agree it's useful in a very specific market, but if you do live in New York and want to travel to Europe, it's an unbeatable option. I'm still saving Starpoints to travel to the Middle East in first class on Emirates.

Also keep in mind that this is a 77W (like the IAD flight) so no showers.

Also, I do not think JAL allows you to book for any friends. So this is for a specific flight, specific place for a specific person only.

Thanks Lucky! thats awesome no fuel surcharges were added. I hope JAL doesn't claim JFK-DXB is over 7000 miles one-way since it would increase a first class roundtrip flight to 155,000 JAL miles. Still, that's cheaper than 180,000 on AS.

Another way perhaps to rack up JAL points is to fly oneworld airlines and credit those miles to your JAL mileage account.

I appreciate you pointing this route out. Another interesting thing about this route is the availability.

Gary have you noticed something rather odd about Emirates EK, first class availability? I have been looking at EK first class availability on expertflyer searching for "Z" There was lots about 2-3 weeks ago. You could depart from SEA many days a month, LAX maybe 5-6 days, and JFK several as well. All of a sudden this week there was zero everywhere this summer, AND availability when it did show up was only Z1 no more Z2's as were plenty 2-3 weeks ago.

EXCEPT ... on this new JFK-MXP route which as you write about has good availability and can be routed JFK-MXP-DXB ... and beyond.

Given the marginal difficulty of earning SPG (extremely difficult) vs earning UR (extremely easy), why not just redeem KE miles for Emirates?

@Greg, I believe the JFK-Milan route starts on October 1st, which is after the summer.

I was an Emirates Skywards member since 2006 and will admit I rarely ever found seat availability in Emirates First (saver level) back in 2008-2010 for JFK-DXB on A380 (though there were a few on the B777 route) but since a year ago, there has been a lot more availability.

Lucky, I want to book JFK-BKK in Z, I can find the outgoing flight but cannot find the return flight if I just search JFK-BKK on expertflyer. However, if I do the return in segments (BKK-DXB DXB-JFK) I can find availability. My question is a) Can I book it by segments on JL, and b) can I do a stopover in DXB?

@ clayd333 -- You can absolutely have a stopover in Dubai. You can give them flights segment-by-segment to book, and they should be able to follow your logic.

TYVM! Gonna burn a ton of SPG points and Hilton points in Thailand (Already booked Conrad Koh Samui)! Do you have any BKK-USM flight advise? We will probably stay a day or two in BKK.. Again thanks for all of the posts, It seems like you've read my mind on your last few trips....

Justin, you make a very good point. From checking the redemption chart on KE, it'll cost 210,000 miles for a roundtrip flight from north america to Dubai, which is not that bad since that's the same number of points required for Emirates Skywards members.

However, not sure if this has changed but a few months ago Lucky wrote how complicated/laborious it is to redeem flights from Korean Skypass.
https://onemileatatime.com/why-do-south-korean-airlines-hate-us-so-much/

The mileage thing is easy to figure out. They use the IATA mileages, which are based on the cities and not the airports. Thus, they're doing NYC-MIL, not JFK-MXP. A quick check on ExpertFlyer shows that NYC-MIL is 4013 miles.

Thanks Mitch, great to know! Never even looked on EF before..

Hmm I find SPG to be too valuable to be wasted on this market (77W).

UPDATE: EK has schedule-changed those flights to oblivion and has has deleted all the MILNYC fares it filed.

Mistake or something more important going on (like missing authority, government permits, or such)?

UPDATE: EK has schedule-changed those flights to oblivion (interestingly including the DXB-MXP segments) and has has deleted all the MILNYC fares it filed.

Mistake or something more important going on (like missing authority, government permits, or such)?

Any idea how many Korean Miles this redemption would be? Doesn't look like they publish a fare for this route on their website...

@ Ryan -- As of now this is a city pair for which you can't redeem Korean Air miles, though there's a chance that'll change sometime down the road.

Emirates (Skywards) per April 1 (at only 6 days notive) totally destroyed their frequent flyer program by imposing HUGE fuel surcharges (which are up to 70% of a purchased ticket!!!) For example for a Europe-Asia Y class ticket you will pay a staggering Euro400 in fuel plus at leat 75k miles, if you can buy a ticket for Euro600! also, to earn Emirates miles is almost impossible- for most trip you get only about 30%! miles credited of effective miles flown; to summarize, Skywards is now one of the WORST programs in sky and basically leaves you grounded!!!

Hi Lucky,

Does JAL allows mixed cabin on award bookings on EK? Can they hold the ticket while waiting for spg transfer to JMB?

Thanks in advance!

@ Fan -- They do allow mixed cabin, but they charge you for the highest class of service you fly. They won't be able to hold the ticket while you transfer Starpoints, unfortunately.

Thanks Lucky! One more question, does JMB allow open-jaw and change after ticket is issued?

Thanks Lucky! Does JMB allow open-jaw and change after ticket is issued?

@ Fan -- Sorry, wish I had an answer, but don't have experience with changes after ticketing. Open jaws are fine, though.

Ben what is this chart? Is it something new?

http://www.jal.co.jp/en/jalmile/use/partner_air/p_ek/ek_mile.html

@ dave -- It looks like that's actually their old award chart, before they switched to a distance based one.
https://onemileatatime.com/reward-programs/airline-rewards/jal-mileage-bank/