In September 2022, Emirates and United announced that they planned to launch a partnership. I wanted to take another look at this, as the partnership has officially launched as of today. Reciprocal mileage earning and redemption opportunities are now possible… in a frustratingly limited capacity.
Continue reading: Live: Emirates & United Airlines Launch Partnership
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
It also appears they're passing along fuel surcharges. EWR-AMS currently pricing at 64,000 miles + $815.10. Yikes!
This is a huge deal for flying to India from EWR especially BOM or BLR as those flights required Russian Airspace. Emirates already had their flights from JFK which is very inconvenient even to folks in Manhattan.
The only kicker is that currently the fares from EWR to BOM are atrocious especially in Business Class unless they make them competitive with the Emirates flights from Kennedy. The fares to DXB are fine. It’s just when you add connections to India they become ridiculous. Perhaps buy separate tickets on United and Emirates which can be a hassle
I love this for the tasty, tasty hypocrisy of the US3 and their long, drawn out Open Skies "woe is me" saga which was laughable at its inception and has not aged well. And fast forward to late 2022 and today and the US3 have clearly adopted the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mentality because it's painfully obvious that the rice bowl that is domestic US travel fuels just one aspect of revenue, but the US3's generally lackluster-to-downright-pitiful (comparatively) hard/soft product internationally is dragging them down on international routes - specifically to the ME in this particular instance but arguably elsewhere judging by my anecdotal evidence of family and friends and Reddit acquaintances always opting for alliance partners when possible. So now they're super keen to partner with those same airlines they had no problem dragging through the mud a few short years ago.
Can't wait to hear the overly vociferous Ed Bastion have some delightfully insipid and head-up-his-own-ass comments about AA's and UA's respective partnerships with QR and EK, comments which will likely just drip with envy because he's late to the party. I mean, EY is still theoretically game, but they're kind of saddled up with AC and hence UA/*A by the way side. So Ed and his merry band of C-suite idiots might just have to suck it.
You could always have bought a separate ticket. This partnership means you don't have to anymore (unless they choose to price higher than competition)!
Understood but in event of IRROPS it is pain in the back. Also the United flight to DXB just started on March 23 so it is still a big deal for BOM travel. Lufthansa is a tired airline with mediocre soft product and ok hard product and BA has huge surcharges on award tickets. LHR is a mess too.
So right now QR with the suites from PHL or JFK or EK from JFK were the only good options since the non stop United flight to BOM was cancelled due to Russian airspace.
Additionally besides personal travel my company travel defaults to US airlines unless I can justify non stop flights. I won’t fly Air India unless I have to in an emergency. So now with the United option to DXB I can easily select the EWR-DXB-BOM route. For most of us in the EWR area having United elite status the UA flight is a big deal as I make several trips to BOm. Last few trips to BOM have been useless in terms of status as I was flying all over the place with different airlines. SQ is the only good option for UA elites but that requires a EWR-SIN non stop and then to BOM which can be a long commute.
Agree. Flying United domestically in the US and transferring to an Emirates flight makes sense but United launching their own flight to Dubai. Who would want to take that flight.... The benefits and conveniences of having the flights in one ticket. If United were to sell seats on the Emirates flight this may be different.
AA flies JFK to Doha which is popular connecting with Qatar. We will see what the load factors and fares United can generate.
The ME3 are subsidized by their state owners with cheap fuel and landing fees. This is going to be true for Saudi Arabia's new carrier. It is easy to offer a better product when you don't have to turn a profit or are a subsidized flag carrier. AA has only made money long term internationally on its JFK-LHR route.
It is easy for you to complain from your PC without having manage routes where you need to compete on price while your competitor does not.
Denver, being one of UA's largest domestic hub, is the only hub that EK deosnt fly to. Any discussions of EK adding Denver?
Don’t buy any ticket which has united and emirates connection. Brought a ticket from United website. Clearly states my 2 bags will be free till thee end. At Dubai on my connection Emirates charges me $600, if I didn’t pay they said they would
Keep on of my bags. They said call united. Call united and they said they pay it and ask for reimbursement. Came back home filled out reimbursement form and they replied back saying sorry we can’t reimburse you, sorry for the communication error. Major fraud by both companies!!!
That old adage, the devil's in the details, is so true here. I really like Emirates and flew them when they had a partnership with Alaska. Never had an issue with getting mileage and status credit on Alaska. This year I booked United/Emirates but went via Chicago to Dubai not EWR. Big mistake! You don't earn anything on United with these other, non-EWR, flights. So, no PQF and no PQP. Next time, it's Singapore or Qatar to Singapore. I assumed that when United had a partnership with Emirates, it was really a partnership. I shouldn't have assumed anything and this certainly soured my opinion of United.