Emirates miles with Aussie credit card?

[GavMoon]

Hi all,

I've just moved to Australia. I have some American Airlines miles and also some Emirates. I thought an airline or reward credit card would be a good way to earn extra miles here. I wanted to know if there is an Australian credit card that lets me earn miles on Emirates?

The only cards I've seen earn Quantas miles, which I guess wouldn't be too bad as they're OneWorld like American Airlines. Emirates is just better though I thought.

Thanks,
Gavin

 

[straitman]

Hi all,

I've just moved to Australia. I have some American Airlines miles and also some Emirates. I thought an airline or reward credit card would be a good way to earn extra miles here. I wanted to know if there is an Australian credit card that lets me earn miles on Emirates?

The only cards I've seen earn Quantas miles, which I guess wouldn't be too bad as they're OneWorld like American Airlines. Emirates is just better though I thought.

Thanks,
Gavin

GavMoon,

Welcome to AFF.

The short answer is no direct card to AA or Emirates. Qantas (no U) and Virgin Blue are your best options.

There is a lot of Credit Card info here to trawl through and just about every question has been asked a few times. If you can't find the answer then someone definitely will be able to help.

 

[craven morehead]

Bankwest Platinum doesn't do AA or Emirates but you can get 2 points to the dollar capped @ 400000 which can be used to get Flight centre vouchers which you may be able to use in conjunction with your favoured airline.

CM

 

[dajop]

GavMoon,

Welcome to AFF.

The short answer is no direct card to AA or Emirates. Qantas (no U) and Virgin Blue are your best options.

There is a lot of Credit Card info here to trawl through and just about every question has been asked a few times. If you can't find the answer then someone definitely will be able to help.

You can also filter points through the Starwood Preferred Guest program (from an American Express) into AA. Although not 1:1, because of the inferior point burning rates and surcharges charged by Qantas (compared to AA) it can be a viable option. Trawl through various CC threads and you will find more info on that. Also in addition to the two above, some credit cards offer good transfers to Virgin Atlantic, Singapore Airlines, Malaysian Airlines and Air NZ programs, for the first two at least at better "burn" rates than either Qantas or Virgin Blue, but not good for domestic travel within Australia.

Good luck, and welcome to both AFF and Australia!!

 

[NM]

Amex still seems to have most options for airline transfers. However, their standard Ascent rewards will be dropping transfers to Qantas shortly. They retain the ability o transfer to Singapore Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Blue, Thai Airlines, Malaysian Airlines and Cathay Pacific.

Diners Club can transfer to AA, but the exchange rate is not overly attractive. The only other way to get to AA is to launder the points via an intermediate program like Starwood preferred Guest, but again the standard transfer rates are not the greatest value. Until the end of September, Amex points transfer to Starwood at 1000->600, but after that it reverts back to the standard rate of 1000->330.

I am not aware of any Australian based credit cards that can earn to Emirates.

 

[oz_mark]

FWIW, you can also use the Starwood route to get points into Emirates.

Amex MR points -> SPG points -> Emirates points