Amex points to Upgrade on Emirates ro BA

[simongr]

Hi all

Just mulling around some thoughts bout getting to Cyprus and other places.

I have about 450K Amex points at the moment and was wondering if there is any way to move those points around to be able to upgrade flights on BA or EK and whether those upgrades are confirmable.

Any ideas?

Cheers

Simon

 

[dajop]

Hi all

Just mulling around some thoughts bout getting to Cyprus and other places.

I have about 450K Amex points at the moment and was wondering if there is any way to move those points around to be able to upgrade flights on BA or EK and whether those upgrades are confirmable.

Any ideas?

Cheers

Simon

450K Amex = 148,500 starwood preferred guest points = 148,500 BA Exec club or Skywards points. Not sure if that helps, as don't know upgrade rules on Skywards or BA.

But then again, 450K transferred to SQ, VS or other partners would well and truly get you at least one (if not two or three) confirmed return J class flights to Europe.

 

[Dave Noble]

It takes 115,000 Skywards points to upgrade an EK flight from economy to business roundtrip to Larnaca and they are confirmable; just need I class availabilty

Would also earn 28,000 skywards miles from the trip and attain EK Silver status. ( 30,000 points is enough to upgrade one way from SYD-BKK for example )

Plus of course, EK is a much more direct route to LCA than BA plus , imo, business class on EK on the A380 SYD-DXB is much nicer than BA's J product

Upgrading on BA can be done with BA miles, but the upgrade from economy (H,B or Y class only iirc) is only to World Traveller Plus; to upgrade to business class would involve purchasing a World Traveller Plus fare

Dave

 

[dajop]

Would also earn 28,000 skywards miles from the trip and attain EK Silver status. ( 30,000 points is enough to upgrade one way from SYD-BKK for example )

Do you earn skywards miles on fare paid (ie economy) or cabin flown (economy with J upgrade)? Would earn 28,000 if the latter, and that would make EK program pretty unique. If not the earn would be 16,000 miles - or if on a saver fare 8,000 miles (and would then need 145,000 for upgrade).

 

[simongr]

Thanks all for the replies. If only Amex had EK as a partner for points and not just for paid travel...

I would certainly prefer EK to BA as an option - is it possible to upgrade family members? I could then upgrade my parents to come here (they have some points as well).

 

[Dave Noble]

Thanks all for the replies. If only Amex had EK as a partner for points and not just for paid travel...

I would certainly prefer EK to BA as an option - is it possible to upgrade family members? I could then upgrade my parents to come here (they have some points as well).

With EK, you can use your points to upgrade anyone you like

Dave

 

[Dave Noble]

Do you earn skywards miles on fare paid (ie economy) or cabin flown (economy with J upgrade)? Would earn 28,000 if the latter, and that would make EK program pretty unique. If not the earn would be 16,000 miles - or if on a saver fare 8,000 miles (and would then need 145,000 for upgrade).

oops... I had looked at business class on the calculator to determine upgrade cost but forgot to switch to economy to look at the earning.

It is v eay to avoid saver fares on EK; not all routes have saver fares anyway and where they do it seems that it is only the lowest fare on route... not like QF where all other than Y earn at discount rate

pretty unique hey... as good an idea as someone being slightly pregnant

Dave

 

[dajop]

It is v eay to avoid saver fares on EK; not all routes have saver fares anyway and where they do it seems that it is only the lowest fare on route... not like QF where all other than Y earn at discount rate

To be fair to QF though, all earn points at full rate, just status comes at the discount rate. However both EK and QF better than SQ and CX where the lowest fares often earn a big fat 0 points and no contribution to status!