Redeem Emirates Skywards Miles For JetBlue Mint

Redeem Emirates Skywards Miles For JetBlue Mint

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Update: Unfortunately as of late June 2022, it’s no longer possible to redeem Emirates Skywards miles for JetBlue Mint. Economy awards continue to be possible.

Emirates Skywards is primarily a useful frequent flyer program for the ability to redeem miles for first & business class travel on Emirates. Historically the program hasn’t had many useful partner redemptions.

Fortunately not that long ago, Emirates started allowing redemptions on JetBlue (including in Mint!), and in many cases it’s a good deal. Initially it wasn’t possible to redeem Emirates Skywards miles for JetBlue’s London flights online, but that is now possible… and it’s an excellent deal! Let’s go over all the details.

Emirates Skywards redemption rates on JetBlue

Emirates Skywards has a distance based based award chart for travel on JetBlue, allowing redemptions in both economy and Mint (which is the name of JetBlue’s business class, available on select A321 aircraft).

Here’s the Emirates Skywards award chart for travel on JetBlue (pricing is per segment):

Most significantly for those looking to redeem in Mint business class, you can expect to pay:

  • 52,000 Skywards miles for Mint on a 2,000-3,000 mile flight, which covers all transcon flights
  • 64,000 Skywards miles for Mint on a 3,001-4,000 mile flight, which covers transatlantic flights
Redeem Skywards miles for travel in JetBlue Mint

What is JetBlue award availability like?

An interesting wrinkle here is that JetBlue’s own frequent flyer program is revenue based, meaning the cost of an award is directly correlated to the cash cost of a ticket. Therefore JetBlue hasn’t historically had a special fare class for awards.

With Emirates having a more traditional distance based award redemption model on JetBlue, what is award availability like? Award seat availability is based entirely on which fare classes are available:

  • JetBlue economy awards are available when there’s “P” class availability
  • JetBlue Mint awards are available when there’s “I” class availability

This is awesome, as you’ll often find many “I” class seats available on JetBlue flights.

American AAdvantage and JetBlue TrueBlue are also rolling out reciprocal mileage redemptions. While you can redeem American miles for travel on JetBlue, the pricing is steep, and on top of that London flights are excluded.

JetBlue Mint award availability is quite good

How can you book JetBlue awards with Emirates Skywards miles?

JetBlue awards using Skywards miles can be booked directly on emirates.com. Initially flights to & from London weren’t bookable online, but that has now changed.

To book an award, visit emirates.com and click on the “advanced search” section above where you’d enter your departure and arrival airport.

Then click “Book Classic Reward Flight” and then click “Search partner flights only.” Enter the origin and destination you’d like to travel between, and the date. Note that while there’s an option to search flexible dates, don’t click this — it will cause an error message to come up with your search.

On the next page all the flight options will be displayed, and as you can see, there are often quite a few options available.

What’s really exciting is that as of recently JetBlue flights to & from London are also bookable online. While Emirates Skywards ordinarily passes on carrier imposed surcharges, I’m delighted to see that these don’t apply for JetBlue flights, including those to & from London.

A New York to London flight will cost you just 64,000 Skywards miles plus $10.10.

In the other direction you’ll pay ~$335. That’s not because there are fuel surcharges, but rather because you’re paying the hefty UK Air Passenger Duty.

64,000 Skywards miles for a transatlantic JetBlue Mint ticket without any fuel surcharges is a great value, especially for such a good product. You can read my review of the JetBlue Mint Suite here, and read my review of the JetBlue Mint Studio here.

Book JetBlue awards directly on Emirates’ website

Is redeeming Emirates Skywards miles on JetBlue a good deal?

Whether or not redeeming Emirates Skywards miles for travel on JetBlue is a good deal really depends on how you look at it:

  • Redeeming 52,000 Skywards miles for a one-way transcon business class flight might not sound like a great value on the surface
  • At the same time, award availability is excellent, and JetBlue’s Mint product is my favorite in the United States
  • This can also represent quite a good deal compared to paid tickets, because transcon “I” class tickets in JetBlue Mint can otherwise easily retail for $1,000+ per flight

Redeeming 52,000 miles for a flight that would cost $628 isn’t a particularly good deal…

Meanwhile redeeming for a last minute flight that would cost $1,562 is a much better deal, if you ask me.

The area where this redemption really shines is for transatlantic flights, where you can redeem 64,000 Skywards miles for a ticket that costs a minimum of $2,504 is quite a good deal (though in fairness roundtrip pricing is typically more attractive).

Earning Emirates Skywards miles is easy

One reason this opportunity is so valuable is because of how easy it is to earn Emirates Skywards miles. The program partners with virtually all transferable points programs, including Amex Membership Rewards, Capital One, Chase Ultimate Rewards, and Citi ThankYou.

Bottom line

It’s possible to redeem Emirates Skywards miles for travel on JetBlue, including in Mint. You can expect to pay 52,000 Skywards miles for a one-way transcon Mint award, or 64,000 Skywards miles for a one-way transatlantic Mint award, all with no fuel surcharges.

This has the potential to be a solid deal, particularly given how good award availability is, and for situations where paid fares are expensive. Emirates Skywards offers the all around best value proposition for redeeming in JetBlue Mint, and I’m happy to see London flights finally bookable online.

Anyone plan on redeeming Emirates Skywards miles for travel in JetBlue Mint?

Conversations (17)
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  1. Mike Guest

    Is this still working? I've been searching across multiple routes and multiple dates and keep getting the message that they can't price the selected itinerary.

  2. Brodie Guest

    Thanks for the reminder. I found my flight I needed LAX-JFK and booked it right away. Contacted Emirates for Jetblue record locator and guess what, it's not working. UGH. Trying Jetblue's text feature to see if I can sort it out. Throne seats are wide open and I need to snag them.

  3. Andrew R. Guest

    Looks like these are only showing up through the end of March. Errors out thereafter. Maybe a 60 day advanced window to book?

    1. Brodie Guest

      I booked the end of May yesterday.

  4. John Spear Guest

    Ben, if you redeem EK miles for one of the London Mint Suite flights, can you then call B6 and pay for an upgrade to a Studio?

    1. Ben Schlappig OMAAT

      @ John Spear -- I haven't booked an award like this myself, but I think that should be possible. The Mint Studio is essentially reserved the same way as any other premium seat, and those can typically be reserved when on a ticket issued by another airline.

  5. bill Guest

    The screenshot you have for the LHR-JFK flight is booking into D - isn't award availability only in I?

    1. Ben Schlappig OMAAT

      @ bill -- Good point! Best I can tell JetBlue only sells "D" fares for one-way tickets (even though the "I" fare class is available), so it's not a totally fair comparison. My main point though is that the cheapest one-way fares seem to be $2,500ish.

    2. bill Guest

      So if we were searching for B6 availability on, say, ITA for LHR-JFK in Mint, would it make sense to search roundtrip in I, even if we only wanted a one-way?

  6. mjonis Guest

    Thanks for this info. Even at 64k it's still cheaper than what JetBlue wants to charge for the flights I'm looking at in Mint. 105,000 - 120,000 for each way vs. the Skywards of 64k each way. Of course, I'll have to contend with the many month wait for Skywards Audit, but I guess I'll start now.

    1. Ben Schlappig OMAAT

      @ mjonis -- Hopefully no audit! For what it's worth, they do seem to have slowed down a bit with those audits, so hopefully that continues to be the case.

  7. JohnSF New Member

    Not sure if this applies to B6 bookings but there was (probably still is) an EK website bug when booking EK award flights online. They have (or had last year) a comparison bug.

    When booking a 100k award you were not able to book it online if you had exactly 100k miles in your Skywards account. You would need more. I assume 100k + 1 point would be enough but I transferred in 1k more...

    Not sure if this applies to B6 bookings but there was (probably still is) an EK website bug when booking EK award flights online. They have (or had last year) a comparison bug.

    When booking a 100k award you were not able to book it online if you had exactly 100k miles in your Skywards account. You would need more. I assume 100k + 1 point would be enough but I transferred in 1k more credit card points and was then able to book the award online. With only the exact number of points in my account I was not able to book it online. With more than the required number of points I was able to book it online. This does not appear to be a limitation when calling in, online when booking an award on the EK website. This was for an EK award but I assume it would apply to all online bookings through the EK website.

    1. Andrew Guest

      I did successfully book without calling 6 months ago, I think I used the app instead?

  8. Fraser Guest

    I use Skywards for JFK-LAX-JFK flights in Mint a few weeks back. B6 wanted more than $1200 each way so it was a decent deal in my case. However, I wasn't able to book them online, I was able to search out space on Expertflyer (IIRC 6 seats were available in each case) and I called them over the phone and booked with no issues.

  9. Todd Guest

    I'm not sure if the statement about "I" class inventory being available to Emirates is 100% accurate. I booked in October for a December 2021 Mint flight from LHR-JFK. I needed two Mint award seats. I check on Expert Flyer and it showed plenty of "I" class nearly every flight, however Emirates only would allow me to book 1 seats. It appears Emirates only gets 1 "I" class seat per flight. I booked the one...

    I'm not sure if the statement about "I" class inventory being available to Emirates is 100% accurate. I booked in October for a December 2021 Mint flight from LHR-JFK. I needed two Mint award seats. I check on Expert Flyer and it showed plenty of "I" class nearly every flight, however Emirates only would allow me to book 1 seats. It appears Emirates only gets 1 "I" class seat per flight. I booked the one and waited to see if another would open up which it didn't and then had to fork over $2K for a business class ticket for the other seat. From what I can tell, availability for 1 "I" seats is "excellent" but not if you want to book another seat or travel with someone.

    1. Ben Schlappig OMAAT

      @ Todd -- Thanks for the data point, sorry to hear about your experience. Were you booking online or by phone? Many of the flights I'm pulling up show six or more business class award seats per flight, so maybe something has changed since then?

    2. Todd Guest

      Perhaps things have changed or they had restrictions during the month of December. I did book online but I even called them and the agents advised the same thing of only 1 seat being available for redemption even though EF showed more. Maybe it was a bug that is now fixed.

Featured Comments Most helpful comments ( as chosen by the OMAAT community ).

The comments on this page have not been provided, reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any advertiser, and it is not an advertiser's responsibility to ensure posts and/or questions are answered.

Mike Guest

Is this still working? I've been searching across multiple routes and multiple dates and keep getting the message that they can't price the selected itinerary.

0
Andrew Guest

I did successfully book without calling 6 months ago, I think I used the app instead?

0
Brodie Guest

I booked the end of May yesterday.

0
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