Questions and Answers

Are there any UAE-based credit card ninjas here?

Lucky and his team have done a lot of analysis of credit cards and mileage strategies, but it is all fairly US-centric (and understandably so, of course). Does anybody know of any similar resources for the UAE? I think that the credit card offerings are different, and I obviously am most interested in the EK/EY loyalty schemes.

At the moment, my wife and I spend about 20-30K AED per month between a Standard Chartered Visa Infinite and a Citibank Prestige Card. Every so often we cash in the citipoints for discounts on Emirates/Etihad flights. We haven’t been using the SC card for very long – I got it for the gym membership!

We live in Abu Dhabi and fly 3-4 times per year for leisure, mostly in business, and mostly to Toulouse. So far we have simply paid for these flights, albeit with some of the citibank cashback.

Is it worth chasing Etihad Guest points? Reward tickets/upgrades seem quite expensive, and I am not sure about availability.

Any ideas?

Foreign cards are hard to talk about since they’re not as rewarding, and not many are familiar with them. However, the general “guide” to evaluating rewards credit cards is mostly the same – [URL]https://onemileatatime.com/choose-credit-card-outside-us/[/URL]

That being said, neither Emirates or Etihad has a great loyalty/mileage program. You may wish to look into joining another program that partners with Emirates/Etihad and/or a local card with transferable points

You might also want to check out the Points of Arabia blog to see if there’s anything helpful there.

Thank you! Looking at Points of Arabia now… so there is a ninja.