One of the reasons I’ve not been a big fan of Emirates Skyward loyalty programme has been the massive fuel surcharges they have levied for the longest time on their redemptions for the most of the past decade. These fuel surcharges were some of the highest in the world and even applied to economy class tickets no less, apart from the miles that were charged.
Recently, it seems Emirates has stopped charging the fuel surcharges on these tickets. These fuel surcharges have been stopped for revenue tickets, and hence, they stopped collecting them for redemption tickets as well. For instance, on the BOM-DXB-BOM flight in Business Class, the currently filed carrier surcharges are INR 6,880. In December 2019, when I flew to Dubai for a vacation, the fuel surcharges on the same Business Class ticket was INR 42,586.
Emirates usually has excellent award availability from their Indian destinations to the rest of the world. However, fuel surcharges were the show stopped for using the Skywards programme for making these redemptions.
Shipra in the Emirates A380 Bar chilling with her Remy Martin on her way from Dubai to Mumbai in January 2020
Emirates redemptions are based on distances, and cost 2X for Business Class and 3X for First Class redemptions. In India, American Express is the only transfer partner for Emirates Skywards, and there is the Standard Chartered Emirates World Card which allows you to earn miles directly.
Bottomline
This is fantastic news for Emirates fans, given these surcharges were a significant hindrance to use Emirates Skywards for flight redemptions. This won’t be immediately useful, but once the CoVid-19 is behind us, this should be very useful for the times ahead.
What do you think of the new changes to Emirates Skywards?
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Emirates has quietly cut its fuel surcharges by more than 50% on most routes, but Saver space has also gone