Emirates has just announced the details of their new Platinum tier, which is for those that earn 150,000 tier miles in a membership year. In terms of requirements there’s a huge gap between this and the Gold tier, which requires just 50,000 tier miles. The benefits of Platinum status are as follows:
Platinum privileges are exclusively reserved for our most frequent flyers with 150,000 Tier Miles or more, and are carefully designed to make every moment of your journey extraordinary. In addition to all the benefits of Skywards Gold, you’ll also enjoy exclusive Platinum member benefits, such as:
- First Class check-in and baggage delivery
- Access for yourself and a guest to the Emirates First Class lounge in Dubai and Emirates Lounges across the network
- 75% bonus Skywards Miles when you fly with Emirates
- Gold ‘Partner’ Card for a spouse or partner
- Guaranteed Business Class revenue seats*
- ‘Last Seat’ Flex reward tickets even on high-demand flights
So the main benefits seem to be first class check-in and lounge access, a 75% mileage bonus, and Gold status to gift to a spouse or partner.
First class check-in isn’t that valuable, in my opinion, since you can usually check-in online, so it really boils down to the other three benefits.
If you fly so much the first class lounge access and 75% mileage bonus can be quite valuable, so I think this is a nice way to differentiate the tiers. That being said, this tier requires triple as many flown miles as the next highest tier, so this is a huge leap. I’d say they could have done a bit more to differentiate the tiers, maybe a couple of upgrade certificates or something, but then again I’m probably coming at this with a bit too much of a US-centric approach. The reality is that foreign carriers don’t compete with US carriers on the frequent flyer program front, mainly because they don’t have to. People fly them because of the great onboard experience and not because of the great frequent flyer program.
So while it’s probably not worth going out of your way to earn Skywards Platinum, if you’d earn it anyway or would otherwise be close, these are some great new benefits.
Membership is free and takes no more information than commenting as a guest. Earn status points for good contributions, and see fewer ads as your status grows.