Emirates Skywards Devaluation
 

As has been reported by many sites, Emirates has devalued Skywards miles by 20% across many markets in business and first class. It seems like all itineraries that end or originate in Dubai have been affected.

The amount of fees, taxes and carrier charges has already made Skywards completely out of reach for many (apart from 5th freedom flights). With this change - is this program even worth it anymore?

Probably not. To be honest, the only reason I have stuck with EK after the ridiculous recent fare increases (whether it was through base fares or surcharges) was that it was relatively affordable to use miles to upgrade. Now that this has also been increased by this much, I am going to spend my miles and change carrier. I’ll miss EK as I enjoy it from many aspects but I cannot carry on like this. Other carriers on the routes I fly have less convenient schedules but I can no longer justify my loyalty to the brand. Two of my friends (both Gold members like myself) have done the same recently. Sad but true!

Yeh same - I've always loved flying EK, particularly for their premium products and I've always enjoyed stop-overs in DXB where I usually stay for a night or two. The carrier charges are absolutely ridiculous IMO, however now this program to me just doesn't make sense anymore. Unfortunately, using miles and points overall is getting worse across most programs, but EK has taken it to a whole new level.

Agree 100%. Really sad to see these changes given how much I enjoy flying with EK and have previously gone out of the way to flying with it.

I really don’t see the benefits of Skywards these days. Miles upgrade way too unattractive. I’ve never really benefited from any of the Gold advantages anyway (other than the awkward greeting on board when the purser is reading your name straight from their tablet).

Another bad move of EK. They diserve to lost all their loyalty members running to other airlines...Qatar, Etihad, or any other.
Let them eat their fuel surcharges and stupid miles required

It’s so funny because I was looking at transferring my Amex points to Skywards for a reward flight from LHR-DXB (business class) in May next year but when I saw that they were asking for 174,000 miles and over £900, I pulled back straight away.

I transferred a fairly big chunk a couple of weeks back... I should have learned from last year, as soon as a Buy Points promotion comes along, the devaluation follows on! At least they did the decent thing this year and devalued before the end of the promotion :(

Those taxes and fees are crazy

By the way...I'd take a look at the aeroplan program if there's any EK award seat available for your dates and route. Condiering that Aeroplan don't pass to you the huge fuel surcharge of taxes and considering they will devaluate the EK chart redeption at early 2023. If there's any award seat that fits to you I wouldn't hesitate much

This is utterly bonkers at the same time as they are opening up redemptions to Aeroplan, basically asking everyone to dump Skywards. Will be particularly annoyed in Aeroplan ends up with cheaper F pricing.

It's funny to watch EK go down the same route QR already did with Privilege Club five or so years ago when they totally trashed the value of the programme and then realised too late they'd made a massive mistake. I last credited a flight to QRPC in 2018 and I am still Gold through next year (I dropped one level in five years) because they have to keep extending everyone's status as they don't have enough members...

20%? Try 100%

!!!! You're absolutely correct - wow that is crazy. Unbelievable. See you late Skywards.

Yup game over at this point. They effectively nuked their program which must be what they wanted.

Sorry to hear this, time to start burning the miles.
On an every cloud note; we had been waitlisted for Y-J upgrade since Nov on MAN-DXB on 30th Dec, got the email and called and was only charged the old no of miles to upgrade, was expecting to have to shell out the increase - maybe because it was 'reserved' beforehand

Happy holidays

However upset I also am about the devaluation (see my earlier post), this ‘100%’ is factually incorrect as this would make Skywards worth nothing at all, which is obviously not the case.
I think we should try to keep emotion out of the discussion (however difficult that may be…)