Help me with mileage strategy
 

Have zero miles on Emirates. Flying a family of 4 SFO-DXB-SFO on Economy Flex fare. Questions:

1) Does it make sense to earn on Emirates with the hope that we'll use it again within 3 years? Or should I take the hit and earn half the miles on Alaska?

2) Is there any possibility of earning miles on the onward trip, and using that to upgrade at least one seat to business or Economy Plus on the return journey? From what I can tell, there's no obvious way given the miles required, but I thought I'd ask in case there is a hack I'm missing or some other possible way to get an upgrade.

3) Is Economy Plus worth it for passengers who aren't tall or heavy?

Thanks in advance,

Hi there and welcome to the EK Forum, I already replied to your other question on the Newbie thread but happy to see you engaging further.

1. It's DXB, not DUB, people get a little edgy about that over here ;) (unless you actually did mean Dublin, but I doubt it as EK doesn't publish a fare between those cities)
​​​​​​2. EK doesn't have "Economy Plus" or any premium economy as a separate class of service. They have extra legroom seating which you must pay for, can't use miles for this
3. The entire return trip is unlikely to get you even halfway to a single sector upgrade which is probably in the 70-90k range from a Y Flex fare to J Saver. If you're going to use them with AS and especially if you already have miles with AS then that's probably a better bet.
​​​​​

And so they should. As someone living in DUB its unforgivable 😋

What fare class are you travelling on?
https://www.wheretocredit.com/emirates
EK has several ff partners

Adding frequent miles in a ff program that you can use, are worth more than ff miles in an orphan ffp that you will never use even, if the earning rate is nominally better.

What was the end result last time (April 2017)? :----> https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/emir...-possible.html

Thank you everyone, the quality of the help and responses here never ceases to amaze me!

I would be annoyed too if someone got the airport code wrong, including me. Thanks for the gentle pointer :) Fixed!

mwenenzi, I had completely forgotten that time that I earned on JetBlue. I did that only because points there don't expire. Having forgotten, this time I initially signed up for Alaska even though I really don't fly Alaska much either. Your pointer to my own post reminded me, and I'm going to now change to earn on JetBlue.

​​​See what I mean by being amazed by this forum? Thank you!

​​​​​​​And that's a great site as well to look up where to credit!

Debriefing
 

Summarizing here for everyone's benefit:

Decided to go with Alaska over JetBlue. The tradeoff is expiry (24mo Alaska vs never) vs. value (1.7 Alaska to 1.3 approx).

Although I put in the mileage numbers correctly well before the first flight, it took two calls and an email to Alaska and over a month to get the miles credited. Save your boarding passes!

The miles shown on emirates.com wheretocredit.com, and the miles Alaska actually credited were all quite different! I'm not sure what to make of it yet.

To find out the Emirates class:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/emir...s-booking.html

Thank you again everyone.

So I'm curious, I ticketed through JetBlue for my EK flights. How do I know what program I can use to earn for this trip? According to wheretocredit.com, it looks like AS is the way to go, but can I use that with JetBlue? I'm confused - sorry, I'm a newb with this. 1.8 with AS vs. 1.3 with JB. Seems like a no brainer plus the multiplier is much higher.

I'm flying J on EK, so I'm trying to make the most of this. I don't know when I'll be on EK again (or JetBlue for that matter - but I could use the award tickets easily this summer for people).

Thanks,
dave.

What does "ticketed through JetBlue for my EK flights" mean? :confused:
JB or EK flight number? Route?

FF miles are not equal to earn or burn. For awards the burn can vary a lot route by route depending on the ffp.
And then need to consider cash surcharges if applicable.
No idea how OP calculated 1.7 AS & 1.3 JB, what ever that means. To me there is never 1 simple answer on the best ffp.

It's a JB ticket number and JB flight numbers. Route = SYR-JFK-DXB-JFK-SYR

I calculated the values using these: https://thepointsguy.com/guide/monthly-valuations/

dave.

With JB flights numbers on JB/EK operated flights expect will only be able to credit to JB or EK ffp.
JB is not as AS ff partner, hence expect they will reject a ff claim even though EK is an AS partner
https://www.alaskaair.com/content/mi...rline-partners

AS ffp t&c's states flights must be marketed & operated by the same airline. But in the AS forum are reports if they manually retro claim where both are ff partners the claim is usually accepted based on the operating carrier. But nothing is certain.

Flying a codeshare flight marketed by one airline (flight number), operated by a second airline and crediting the frequent flyer miles/points to a third airlines ffp is always problematic. Usually only works if all three are in the same alliance (Oneworld - Star - Skyteam) or specific provision in the ff program rules. e.g AA miles or BA avios on QF marketed flight operated by EK.

With non alliance partners even if the different marketing and operating carriers are both partners of your ffp the codeshare does not always earn ff miles/points.

That's what I was thinking, but wanted to confirm from someone with more knowledge. Thanks for the information. Most likely, I think I will end up using my JB ffp for the miles since I can more readily utilize the miles for domestic flights. I don't think I'll be flying Emirates all that often as most of my work takes me to Saudi rather than the UAE - I'm flying UA & LH for most of those routes.

I appreciate the help and guidance.

dave.

Program to credit miles
 

Flying later in the year, in Emirates Saves economy, from US to India and wondering where to charge the few miles we'll get... Emirates or Alaska?

As a background, the primary usage of miles would be to fly from US to India. I don't have any status or even miles in Emirates or Alaska. I've heard Alaska miles are good for travel to India but on the other side, Emirates allows miles to be pooled with family members so that helps.

Please advise. Thanks

Program to credit miles
 

[off topic]

What fare booking class?
https://www.wheretocredit.com/ek
What other flights will you take in the future?
1 economy trip will not earn many ff miles to any ffp.

AS ffp is good. AS award chart is very prescriptive/limited

Be mindful of expiry Miles/Points that Do and Don't Expire. Click to open the wiki.
EK ff miles have a hard expiry. Use them or loose them.

[on topic]

Booking class is T.

The site shown mentions miles credited to AS is 50%. Emirates app shows that miles for EK is also close to 50% of miles shown (Is that because of the booking class?).

Other flights in the future will be US to India.