Flydubai will adapt Emirates Skywards
 

From 01 August 2018, Emirates Skywards will become the loyalty programme for flydubai (sister company of EK), replacing OPEN, the old programme. This means everyone will be able to use an existing Emirates Skywards account to earn and redeem Skywards Miles when flying with flydubai, as well as with Emirates. Skywards Silver, Gold and Platinum members, as well as Open Gold members, can convert their Flydubai points into Skyward miles. For me personally (i am Gold member of both airlines), I was offered to change 2:1, meaning 50,000 Open points to 25,000 Skyward miles. Or the alternative of a Flydubai voucher of ca. 300 AED.

Flydubai did imho not consider the small but important tier benefits Skyward Silver, Gold and Platinum have.

1.) Lounge
Silver members can use the EK lounge in T3, same for Gold (Business Lounge) and Platinum (First Class Lounge), who can also bring another guest. This will be impossible at the Flydubai Terminal, as their Lounge is very small. Flydubai on request already confirmed that using the Lounge in T2 will not be a tier benefit (I thought so).

2.) Business Gate T2
Skywards Silver and above using the business gate for boarding. As T2 is using a bus to bring the C Class Pax to the aircraft an there are only 16 seats in that bus, I can not imagine how all Skywards member + the regular C-Class pax will fit into it.

3.) Luggage
Flydubai didn't comment yet on the additional luggage allowance for Skywards and check-in. procedure.

More Infos here:
https://www.flydubai.com/en/open/programme-changes

The tier benefit is access to "Emirates Lounges" in Dubai and partner lounges at outstations. The T2 lounge is presumably neither. I wouldn't be surprised if longer term they expand the lounge and do add this benefit however.

For bus boarding on EK one doesn't get to use the J bus on the basis of status. You can proceed past the initial BP check to the busses but then embark on to a regular Y bus, gone through this many times (EK Gold) and never been offered the J Bus. So no difference there, either.

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It is. Flydubai has in Terminal 2 only one business gate from which C-Class Pax board, regardless of the destination.

Frankly, converting the 26k OPEN points I was unlikely to ever use to 13k Skyward miles is the best outcome for me.

I was expecting a much worse outcome, frankly!

Joint program makes sense and cents.

Side note: STC talks about the FZ/EK "rapprochement" on the latest Axis Harvey radio show. He touted the benefits but he essentially said this was a request from "the ownership". .

Whats your status on EK and FZ?. Mine is Gold in both. Interested to see if they offered for both the conversion 1:2 miles. Or if its different for different tiers... There doesn't seem to be a general rule as they are saying to login to see "your option" and only offer the option once you put in your Skywards number. Interesting is that Open Gold was reachable with 7,000 tier miles and they will be converted to Skywards Gold. Then next year they need to achieve 50,000 miles to keep Gold. Long haul flights not an issue. But its not fair for people only flying FZ, as to reach 50,000 miles is nearly to impossible. Yes, 50 flights per year also count but still. FZ-only user (except those flying twice a week), will have it very difficult to reach Gold again.

I'm EK Plat and same ratio offered.

FZ flyers will get a worse deal (but status on FZ is not comparable). And while 6000 tier points may not seem like much, the earn rate is pretty low on FZ unless you're flying the longer destinations or in J. For example DXB-JED is ~475 tier points in J.

If you live in Dubai though, it's hard to avoid EK if you fly a reasonable amount, so there's a pooling opportunity there. It will be interesting to see if the earn rates will be the same (doubt it given FZ/EK price differential in J, for example)

Not surprised to see this change come about in adoption of Skywards for FZ as an airline. Although, heard through a good source that FZ is about to begin utilising gates and partial operations out of T3 by Q4'18 thereby giving FZ pax an opportunity to use EK lounges as well...
I cannot say that I'm entirely happy since this codeshare business started - in comparison to past years, there are fewer valuable promotions now and J seats pricing has increased significantly (especially BKK). On the other hand, heard good things about the lie-flat seats (J class) on the 737 Max 8 and it appears that the new Max 9s and Max 10s will be introduced in good time too...
Personally, I've always enjoyed J service with FZ: for the price of Y Flex on EK, one gets Moet at the lounge in Dubai, separate boarding gate (with J bus shuttles) to the aircraft, personalised service onboard (Mumm champers served inflight) and semi-180 recline seats (lie flats on the new Max 8s). If you're lucky enough to book on a companion ticket promotion or one of those, J pricing is comparable to Y saver plus the advantage of flying into smaller EU airports...

If they share the same Skywards FFP program, should this subform now officially include FlyDubai as well?

I am flying Dubai to Batumi and back early August on a rather cheap Fly Dubai ticket. Anyone can tell me how many Skywards miles I will earn? There has been a lot of talk about the OPEN programme merging with Skywards but the basic earning question on FZ has not been addressed yet.

If you're on a flydubai ticket I don't think you'll earn any. If I'm reading it correctly, this page says you need to be on an EK ticket and the destination isn't an earning destination anyway (not many are).

https://www.emirates.com/english/sky.../flydubai.aspx

?? Then what's the point of FZ adapting Skywards as their FFP?

I was surprised when I read that page too as Skywards Miles (and Tier Miles) only appear to be earned on destinations which EK also serves. Maybe it's just the beginning and things have still to develop?

Could it not have been updated yet and not reflect the latest?

These are indeed the "old" rules that are still current until August. As of then all flights will earn.

Flydubai adapts Skywards