Finally: Redeem Emirates Skywards Miles On FlyDubai At A Good Rate

Here’s a change that I’m really excited to see, though it doesn’t yet appear to be working as promised.

Emirates Skywards improves FlyDubai award options

Emirates and FlyDubai are both owned by the government of Dubai, but are operated independently. If you ask me, a merger between the two airlines makes sense, but that’s neither here nor there. Over the years, the airlines have started cooperating more closely, though, given their largely complementary route networks.

For example, in 2018, FlyDubai discontinued its own OPEN loyalty program, and instead adopted the Emirates Skywards program. What’s annoying is that Emirates Skywards redemptions on FlyDubai have been an outright awful value, especially compared to redeeming on Emirates.

Up until now, the only way to redeem Skywards miles on FlyDubai has been using the Cash+Miles feature directly through FlyDubai’s website, and the value just isn’t good. For example, take a one-way FlyDubai business class flight from Dubai to Belgrade, with a fare of $1,726.

If I were to redeem my 69,179 Skywards miles toward the ticket, I’d save $540 off the cost of a ticket, as these are revenue based redemptions that get you well under a cent per mile. No thanks!

So there’s a positive update on this front — Emirates has announced that it’s now possible to redeem Skywards miles for Classic Rewards on all FlyDubai flights, across all cabins, subject to award availability. This complements the existing Cash+Miles redemption option.

This is awesome, because if there’s award space available, it means you’ll be able to book seats on FlyDubai at a much more attractive cost. The option to redeem Cash+Miles remains, but again, that’s not a very good value.

Using the above Dubai to Belgrade example, a FlyDubai business class award would cost 108,000 miles roundtrip (for Business Saver), or 87,000 miles one-way (for Business Flex), before taxes and carrier imposed surcharges. Given the lack of other ways to get a deal on FlyDubai business class, this is pretty awesome.

These redemptions don’t seem to be live yet, though?

Emirates claims that these redemptions on FlyDubai are now available on emirates.com. This announcement was made on Tuesday, so these redemptions should be live for a few days now.

However, I can’t actually pull up any of this availability online with Emirates, whether through the website or mobile app. The flights just don’t appear when searching awards, and when searching a destination only served by FlyDubai, the destination field “unpopulates” when selecting an award redemption.

Am I missing something, or has this just not been rolled out yet?

Bottom line

Emirates Skywards is finally introducing traditional award redemptions on FlyDubai, roughly seven years after the carrier adopted Skywards as its program. Up until now, only Cash+Miles redemptions have been possible, and they haven’t represented a good deal.

I’m very happy to see this update, though based on what I can see, these redemptions aren’t working properly yet.

What do you make of Skywards rolling out Classic Rewards on FlyDubai?