781elephant

I have been going back and forth trying to decide the best use of my skyward miles. I have the skywards credit card and fly pretty much only on Emirates so have racked up a bit of miles.

Usually I try and save them for upgrades, but sometimes these are not available which makes me which I had just purchased the ticket with miles altogether. The downside of that is that then I have to pay the taxes on the ticket (airport tax etc), which usually ends up being 2-3k aed.

Looking to hear your feed back and thoughts on the best use of miles. I prefer to fly business.

lighthand

Upgrades (nuff said..)

ioto1902

Definitively upgrade. No hesitation.

m3red

But what about a j return to London at 90k? That's not bad is it? First for 135k miles...what are the taxes on this?

If I booked j to London or man it would be 12-18k aed plus 60k points (I guess you would earn 10)

subject2load

I'd agree with lighthand & ioto that upgrades are - in general - the lesser of two evils when it comes to using miles with EK.

I genuinely believe that the only accurate description that can be applied to Skywards earn/burn is that it does an admirable job in living up to expectations as one of the worst FFP's out there.........

StrikeM

Upgrade for sure.

When upgrading though make sure you have the best ticket for it though i.e a flex ticket.

Flex tickets use much less miles when upgrading than a saver ticket does.

eternaltransit

EK have designed the system to pretty much get enough cash revenue from all redemption methods to cover operating costs of the flight, no matter the redemption route (upgrades, award), either through making you buy a ticket in a lower class, or imposing "carrier surcharges".

Given that, the best value redemptions are generally upgrades from Flex to a nearly full higher class cabin - that generally surpasses the earn rate from a credit card. Otherwise you're better off with a cashback credit card if offered in your jurisdiction. Or getting 10% the headline price

The very best values are if you are Silver or above and do a space available upgrade into the last seat in the class above. (2-3cpm).

subject2load

Well, sure, that's undeniably the case.

But worth adding of course (for anyone not perhaps fully familiar with EK fare pricing) that the cash difference between saver and flex tickets can be very significant, depending on route /sector. Hence the need for some basic arithmetic at the booking stage.......

kuroko

def flex/flex+, as Y saver fares are only upgradeable at the check-in (I assume OP want an upgrade Y to J as he wrote about booking class availability, as Upgrade to F and Reward F ticket is the same booking class)

StrikeM

True that

781elephant

Ok lets take an example just to see:

I chose flexible dates and chose the 'best fare date'.

Option 1: Buy ticket cash, then upgrade
DXB - NYC
Eco Flx = 5,200 AED... then it costs 140,000 miles to upgrade to business (if available...)
[note: you earn 8,400 (base) miles so lets say net cost is 130,000 miles]

Option 2: Buy ticket cash, then upgrade
DXB - NYC
Eco Flx Plus = 7,850 AED ... then it costs 108,000 miles to upgrade to business (if available...)
[note: you earn 12,000 (base) miles so lets say net cost is 90,000 miles... just rounding]

Option 3: Straight miles purchase
DXB - NYC
Business = 3,295 AED service charge, tax, fees ... and it costs 145,000 miles to purchase business (guaranteed)
[note you do not earn any miles on this option]

To me it seems like option 3, straight miles purchase is the best one, as I get the business class flight and saved 2,000AED and spent net about 15,000 miles more...

Also in option 3, I have the option to further upgrade one way to First for an additional 35,000 miles, whereas if I upgrade from Ecn this is not possible, as I understand you can only upgrade one class...

Thoughts???

eternaltransit

It depends exactly what your objective is - are you looking to maximise the value of your miles or do you want to spend the least cash for a certain date?

If you want to maximise the value of your miles, you need to look at the comparison between the cheapest J fare on your route - (or technically, the fully flex one, because redemptions are fully flexible, but for our purposes cheapest J is best given you want to travel on a certain day) and the Y+upgrade cost and work out the cash value per mile you are using. This is probably a better way to look at things if your are looking to evaluate whether credit-card earning is worth it vis-a-vis another card.

If you are looking to spend the least cash, then of course take the cash difference out of pocket on the dates you specify.

You can't upgrade a miles based ticket with more miles in general.

eb12

I've noticed that fuel surcharges on skyward awards vary significantly based on where you are originating, so that has a lot to do with it as well

m3red

Surely you just pay the difference in miles?

eternaltransit

Would require cancellation of the old ticket and reissue.

Obviously the facility is there if someone wants to do it, but that's not policy (mainly for instant upgrade situations)