Emirates Finally Introduces Premium Economy Rewards

Emirates has finally unlocked reward seats and upgrades in its Premium Economy cabin, four years after first introducing it on selected flights.

You can now book a reward seat or upgrade into Premium Economy using Emirates Skywards miles, with Emirates Classic Rewards in Premium Economy starting from 15,000 Skywards miles.

Emirates Skywards also recently introduced fixed-price Classic Rewards on flydubai flights for the first time. This makes flydubai a much more attractive way to redeem Skywards miles.

Not available to Qantas Frequent Flyer members… yet

Unfortunately, this doesn’t yet extend to being able to redeem Qantas Points for Emirates Premium Economy flights. But Emirates says that is coming soon.

“We’re thrilled to announce the introduction of flight rewards on Emirates’ highly coveted Premium Economy cabin. This has been in development for some time and comes following the huge success, positive feedback, and strong demand by members to utilise Miles on Premium Economy – especially on popular long-haul destinations such as London, Sydney, Melbourne, and New York,” Emirates Skywards Divisional Senior Vice President Dr. Nejib Ben Khedher said.

“The offer will initially be available exclusively to our Skywards members, with plans to extend to other airline partners in the future.”

Booking Emirates Premium Economy with Skywards miles

You can redeem Skywards miles for Emirates flights on the Emirates website. After logging into your Emirates Skywards account, select the “Classic rewards” box when searching for flights.

The Emirates website now lets you select “Premium Economy” as the cabin class when searching for reward flights.

Emirates Premium Economy awards are currently only available in the Flex Plus category. The Skywards program does not publish award charts, but you can check the number of miles you’d currently need to book a particular route using Emirates’ Miles Calculator.

In general, Emirates does currently seem to have up to 2 Premium Economy Classic reward seats available on many of the routes where it offers the cabin.

Some examples of Emirates Premium Economy reward pricing

As an example, you would need 37,500 Emirates Skywards miles + $182.43 for a Premium Economy Classic reward from Sydney to Christchurch on the Airbus A380.

A Premium Economy flight from Perth to Dubai would cost 70,000 Skywards miles + $329.90.

Sydney-Dubai is a bit more expensive, at 86,000 Skywards miles + $354.53.

It would cost 115,000 Skywards miles to fly all the way through from the Australian east coast to many destinations in Europe in Emirates Premium Economy.

For comparison, Qatar Airways Privilege Club charges 90,000 Avios + taxes & charges for a Qatar Airways Business Class redemption from Australia to Europe. So, the Emirates reward pricing is not super competitive… but not completely outrageous either.

Reasonable carrier charges

Emirates has become known in recent years for slugging ridiculously high carrier charges on Business and First Class redemption tickets.

Luckily, Emirates is adding the same carrier charges to Premium Economy awards that it tacks onto Economy Class redemptions. This is a much lower amount.

So, for example, you could expect to pay just under $500 in extra taxes & charges when redeeming Skywards miles for Emirates Premium Economy from Australia to Europe. You’d pay almost $1,900 in extra charges when booking an Emirates Business or First Class reward ticket on the same route.

Upgrading to Emirates Premium Economy

Emirates says that it’s now possible to upgrade from Economy Saver, Flex and Flex Plus fares to Premium Economy, starting from 7,020 Skywards miles. I assume that price is for a very short route like Dubai-Bahrain.

I just tried to check this for myself, and as far as I can see, this option hasn’t actually be implemented yet on the Emirates website. But watch this space, it should be coming shortly.

You should be able to upgrade with Skywards miles on the Emirates website if there is Premium Economy availability as Classic reward seats, or at the airport on the day of departure to any available seat.