Will Qantas Members Lose Access to Emirates First Class Rewards?

Starting from Monday, 12 May 2025, Emirates is only releasing Classic Reward seats in First Class to its Skywards members with Silver, Gold or Platinum status.

There had been some concerns that this would also mean you’ll no longer be able to redeem Qantas Points for an Emirates First Class seat. Fortunately, Qantas members will continue to have access to these seats – at least for now.

Emirates gave barely any warning about this change which affects a huge number of its Skywards members. As flagged by LoyaltyLobby, the airline just in the last couple of days added a small notice on a few pages of its website advising that “Effective 12th May 2025 classic rewards in First Class will be a Tier benefit available only to Platinum, Gold and Silver tier members.”

For example, this notice was visible on Saturday on the Miles Calculator page of the Emirates website:

Unfortunately, this means that Emirates Skywards members without status will no longer be able to redeem Skywards miles for First Class rewards on Emirates.

What does this mean for Qantas Frequent Flyer members?

Australian Frequent Flyer reached out on Saturday to both Emirates and Qantas to ask if this change will also impact Qantas Frequent Flyer redemptions on Emirates. Neither airline immediately responded to our requests for comment, but Emirates has finally now provided a statement.

“As part of our regular business review, Emirates Skywards has revised the criteria for Classic Rewards. Starting from 12 May, Classic Rewards for First Class will exclusively be available for Platinum, Gold, and Silver Tier members only. This change has been implemented to provide our premium and loyal members with more rewards, exclusive benefits, and greater access to Emirates’ renowned First Class travel experience,” an Emirates spokesperson said.

“Emirates Skywards Blue Tier members can still redeem Miles for upgrades prior to flight departure (from Business Class to First Class) and use Cash+Miles to save on First Class tickets. Members based in the UAE, KSA, India and US can also sign up and enjoy immediate Silver Tier membership status with the loyalty programme’s cobranded credit cards including Emirates NBD, Emirates Islamic Bank, Dubai Islamic Bank, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, SAB, ICICI Bank, Barclays, and HSBC.”

“Members of airlines which partner with Emirates Skywards are not impacted by this change.”

So, it looks like Qantas Frequent Flyer members will continue to have access to Emirates First rewards after all. Phew!

This is good news, but it wasn’t obvious from the one-line notice that Emirates posted on its website on the weekend. My interpretation of that notice was that Emirates First Class Classic Rewards would only be available to Skywards Silver, Gold and Platinum members from Monday. In other words, Emirates First Class awards would no longer be available to book through any partner airlines.

This is how First Class redemptions on Air France have already worked for some time. The only way to book a seat in La Première using miles is with Flying Blue miles – and you need to have at least Platinum status in that program as well.

Emirates is already very restrictive about who can book its First Class seats using points or miles. Currently, Qantas Frequent Flyer and Air Canada Aeroplan are the only partner airline loyalty programs for which Emirates isn’t blocking access to its First Class reward seats.

Emirates First Class is one of the most popular aspirational redemptions for Qantas Frequent Flyer members. It’s not hard to see why.

Despite Emirates’ eye-watering carrier charges on redemption bookings, it’s a seriously great way to fly. The on-board bar and showers available in Emirates’ A380 First Class are particularly beloved, as are the uber-premium alcoholic beverages and unlimited caviar.

Emirates has barely given notice of this change

Any changes that reduce access to reward seats are disappointing. But what’s particularly disappointing is the way Emirates has tried to sneak this one through over a weekend without anyone noticing.

I mean, kudos – I guess – to Emirates for at least giving some notice that something is changing. This at least gave Emirates Skywards members sitting on hundreds of thousands of miles a small window of opportunity to book any final First Class redemptions they’ve been saving up for. If they happened to log into the Emirates website on Saturday or Sunday and notice the message…

But as far as we can tell, Emirates did not send out any formal notification to its Blue Skywards members and has done pretty much the bare minimum to inform its members about this change.

We’ve asked Emirates how much notice they gave to their Blue Skywards members about this change, and whether the airline feels this is sufficient. We’ll update this article if Emirates provides a response.

Emirates First availability through Qantas Frequent Flyer

Until now, Emirates has generally been pretty good at releasing First Class award space to Qantas Frequent Flyer members, particularly at the last minute.

At the time of writing, the Qantas website showed Emirates First Class availability on various routes to and from Australia, including Sydney-Christchurch and Perth-Dubai.

You’ll usually find the best availability booking within a few days of departure, or around 10-12 months in advance. For example, we can currently see a bit of availability in First from Melbourne to Dubai – with onward connections to Europe available – for travel dates in March 2026.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to more than 100 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. His interests include aviation, economics & 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.