Questions and Answers

I am soon to do a trip with my family of 4 Cairo/DXB/Sydney/DXB/Cairo on Emirates in First Class paid fare. I am an American Airlines Advantage Platinum Member and I also have a load of points through American Express which I have used through BA Avios for years. I am wondering if I should join the Emirates program, or would it be more beneficial to going Qantas Frequent Flyer for the 4 Emirates First flights.

Welcome [USER=5788]@GlobalG[/USER] – I’d check your itinerary to see what fare class your tickets are in and then go to wheretocredit.com. Choose Emirates as the airline and enter your fare class and see where you’d earn the most useful miles. Before crediting to an airline whose FF program you’re not super-familiar with, be sure to check the mileage expiration policy. With some airlines, the miles expire in x-number of months, regardless of whether or not there is activity in the account.

If you’re based in the US, it might make sense to see if crediting to Alaska works. They have a good loyalty program and have a good collection of partners, including Emirates.

They offer frequent promotions on purchased miles, and outside of Cathay and LATAM, all their partner’s award space is searchable and bookable online.