So, when they were able to apply it on the backend to your reservation, did you get a credit for the 20%, or was your required mileage reduced by 20% for your redemption? I have a ticket on hold at the moment through the call center, was looking to book an identical one for a different date, get the 20% back, and do a date change to my preferred date (which I have on hold). Looks like I have no option but to get the held reservation issued, and then continue to fight with emirates CS to just give me a credit of 20% of the miles required?

I do not recall exactly. Also, I would not count on them doing anything after the fact. Make them apply it at time of booking. I placed my flight on hold and emailed them so I would have proof to help with the chargeback.

Update: I was able to get this ticketed with the 20% discount applied from the back office. It showed up as a "Skywards+ manual redemption". Just earlier yesterday, I saw seats open up in First Class for our itinerary (leaving a day earlier than we originally had for our Business class redemption), so I had to forgo the discount (cancelled the J booking, and got tickets reissued in F). Tried to see if they could redo the 20% award on the new booking, but no dice. Their T&C's do call this out, that the 20% off coupon will not be reinstated if travel plans change. Which is a bummer, but looking forward to an amazing time in First!

To clarify, do you mean that the 20% discount was applied upfront? Rather than receiving 20% of the miles back after booking? I’m still confused as to whether we need the full amount of miles pre-discount prior to booking.

Yep, it was applied upfront. I was pleasantly surprised too. I then had to just transfer the required miles over from Amex and Chase. I suspect this wouldn’t have worked if the account had the benefits working correctly. In that case, I’d have been required to book via the desktop site, which would have required me to have the full amount in my account and then I would have received the 20% “back”.

Does the 20% Discounted Classic Award apply to any EK-operated Classic Award booking (one way or r/t)?

Terms state:
One‑time Discounted Classic Rewards.

• Skywards+ Members will each qualify for a one‑time only discount on a Classic Reward flight on eligible Emirates Flights, subject to the relevant Classic Reward being redeemed within the relevant Skywards+ Member’s active Skywards+ subscription period (irrespective of the scheduled date of travel).

I'm targeting JFK-MXP and EWR-ATH. Haven't been able to tell if these are definitely considered 'eligible'.

The best way to see whether a flight is eligible is to click the link on your Skywards + page which takes you directly to the Emirates booking engine with automatically inserted promotional codes. Once you get to the payment page, you’ll be able to see whether the 20% miles discount has been applied.

Note that you’ll lose the 20% discount if you cancel or even change your reward booking.

The issue is that I'm not going to spend the money on a subscription before knowing! Is there a way to know without an active subscription?

Great question.

Also does anyone know what the slightly better cash+miles rate is for Skywards+?

They are eligible
At least they were in 2024.

I don’t know about the cash+miles rate but that’s generally acknowledged to be terrible value (even more than EK’s usual terrible redemptions).

The system basically puts a modifier on your account - I did an airport instant upgrade when I had this sub and the price was just spit out by computer, no staff intervention required.

Note though “one time” means per booking, so if you do a one way, you’ll be screwed if you were hoping to do 2 for a return.

Error
 

Is anyone else having a problem with the miles plus membership? I resubscribed in the 1st of November at the same time Emirates changed the layout of their website. Since then I’ve had no miles plus cash offers on the fare page. This has been ongoing now for two months. One lady did call me from Dubai asking for my screenshots which I sent because she said it should be there and it wasn’t. I’m just wondering if it’s just me or other people having issues.

Just spent almost an hour on the phone with the Skywards department because I booked a flex plus reward on the app which clearly stated it would cost 31,200 miles to upgrade. When I tried to upgrade once my reward was booked, the app and the website were both asking for 39,000 miles which doesn’t include the 20% discount. I was asked to send a screenshot of the upgrade cost and eventually was told that my booking was not eligible for the 20% upgrade discount because as per point 2 under section 6 of the Skywards + T&C’s, my reward booking isn’t a commercial ticket. Really? Extremely poor of EK not to honour the discount, especially when both the app and the website clearly show the discounted upgrade cost when booking classic rewards. I gave in in the end and just paid the 39000 miles as it’s late here and I didn’t want to risk losing the upgrade space. But I’m tempted to try and recover the miles difference.

Welcome to Emirates customer service.

So, after two months, I’m still missing the cash plus offer from my account. Yesterday, Skywards called me and informed me that it’s available on the checkout page. However, this is not the cash plus offer, which is displayed on the fare page. Does anyone else have this issue where the cash plus miles offer is not showing on the fare screen? I had to ask for a screenshot from another member’s account.

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Has anyone had any luck with the bonus tier and/or Skywards miles coming through on TA issued tickets on EK if you have a Premium subscription?

Not an OTA, but with a work TA in this example.