Brilliant: Emirates’ “Mile-A-Minute” Promo For Visiting Dubai

I love when loyalty programs think outside the box, and this is the perfect example of that.

Earn one mile for every minute you spend in Dubai

Expo 2020 will be taking place in Dubai later this year, and that also coincides with the UAE’s 50th anniversary celebrations. In recognition of this, Emirates is offering one Skywards mile for every minute you spend in Dubai:

• This is valid for visits between October 1, 2021, and March 31, 2022
• All Skywards members are eligible, but registration is required
• You must book a ticket directly through Emirates (partner tickets don’t qualify) on August 1, 2021, or later
• You must stay in Dubai for at least 24 hours (in other words, a simple connection won’t qualify)
• The calculated length of your stay will be based on your ticketed itinerary — you can either have an extended stopover in Dubai (like flying New York to Dubai to Delhi), or you can make Dubai your destination (like flying New York to Dubai to New York)

Emirates is owned by the government of Dubai, and the airline is arguably more about building up Dubai as a global hub than it is about actually being an independently profitable airline (and that’s totally fair). So in that sense this offer is great — not only does it encourage people to travel with Emirates, but it encourages people to actually visit Dubai and spend time (aka money) there.

The one major catch with this offer

There’s one major catch with this offer. Earning one Skywards mile per minute is quite a generous mileage earning rate. That’s 1,440 miles per day, 10,080 miles per week, or 262,800 miles in six months, should you just want to move there for all of Expo 2020.

Well, there’s a big catch — each Skywards member is capped at earning 5,000 bonus miles with this promotion. You’d earn that after roughly 83 hours, or about 3.5 days in Dubai. So this promotion creates a nice incentive to spend more than 24 hours in Dubai, but doesn’t do much to encourage people to spend incremental time there.

Bottom line

Emirates Skywards has a pretty creative promotion for visiting Dubai during Expo 2020. You can earn one bonus Skywards mile for every minute you spend in Dubai. The major catch is that you have to stay for at least 24 hours, and you’re capped at earning 5,000 bonus miles, which you’d reach within four days.

I wish we saw more innovative promotions like this from airline loyalty programs.

What do you make of Emirates’ “Mile-A-Minute” promotion?

(Tip of the hat to View from the Wing)