Citibank Cards End Emirates Skywards Transfers

The Citi Rewards, Diners Club Rewards, Suncorp Rewards and Card Services Rewards programs will all remove the option to transfer points into Emirates Skywards on 31 January 2023.

These are all reward programs for credit cards issued in Australia by Citibank, which was acquired by National Australia Bank (NAB) last year.

Currently, you can transfer points in all of the aforementioned credit reward programs to a range of different frequent flyer programs, including Emirates Skywards. But a notice now appears on the website of each of these programs, such as this one on the Citi Rewards website:

Please note, we will be removing Emirates Skywards as a Points Transfer partner on the 31st January 2023. You can transfer Points up until this date. You are still able to transfer points to other partners and on all other categories such as Pay with Points, Shop at Partners, eVouchers and more.

Last year, Citibank also withdrew the Emirates Citi World card for new applications. This was the only co-branded Emirates Skywards credit card in the Australian market.

It is still possible to transfer Amex Membership Rewards and CommBank Awards points to the Emirates Skywards program. However, with Emirates charging a high number of points and outrageous fuel surcharges on many Classic Reward flight redemptions, the value may be questionable anyway.

It’s also possible to redeem Qantas Frequent Flyer points to book Emirates flights. However, Qantas Frequent Flyer members still need to pay the high fuel surcharges and don’t have access to the “Flex Plus” award seats on Emirates flights that are available to Skywards members.

At the moment, Emirates is not releasing many Business or First Class Saver reward seats on flights to/from Australia – which are the type available to book using Qantas points – until a few days prior to departure.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 70 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.