How To Upgrade Emirates Flights With Miles, And How Much It’ll Cost You

Emirates is of course known for its excellent passenger experience, including a great first class and business class product. Understandably, many people are interested in upgrading their Emirates flights to a premium cabin, so on this post, I’d like to talk a bit about how that works.

While I don’t think Emirates Skywards overall is the most compelling frequent flyer program, I do think the program has the most widely useful opportunity to upgrade flights with miles. So let’s talk about that — which types of tickets are upgradable, how much will you pay for an upgrade, and is it worth it?

The basics of upgrading flights with Emirates Skywards miles

As I see it, there are a few things that make Emirates Skywards special when it comes to upgrading:

• Most types of tickets booked directly with Emirates are upgradable, and that even includes award tickets (so yes, you could upgrade an economy award ticket to business class)
• Emirates is actually pretty good about making upgrade space available in advance, much more so than with many other airlines
• What’s most exciting though is that the airline offers last seat availability for upgrades on the day of departure, which makes it really easy to predict your chances of scoring an upgrade
• Emirates Skywards partners with most transferable points currencies, though unfortunately 1:1 transfers are no longer consistently offered

So with the above out of the way, let’s talk a bit about the logistics of upgrading Emirates flights.

Which types of Emirates tickets are upgradable?

Emirates generally has four fare “concepts,” which covers tickets paid with cash or booked with miles. These include Special, Saver, Flex, and Flex Plus. When it comes to upgradability:

• Special tickets aren’t upgradable (these fares are only available on revenue tickets, and not award tickets)
• Saver tickets are upgradable, but only on the day of departure, at the airport or onboard the aircraft
• Flex and Flex Plus tickets are upgradable any time, from the time of booking until onboard the aircraft

Let me emphasize that in order to be eligible for an upgrade, the ticket must be issued through Emirates. So a ticket booked through a partner airline on different ticket stock wouldn’t be eligible for a mileage upgrade.

Furthermore, upgrades are generally valid for up to one cabin, except economy passengers can also skip premium economy and upgrade to business class.

One other thing worth mentioning is that while you need Skywards elite status in order to be able to outright redeem miles for Emirates first class, non-elite members can upgrade to first class, so it’s not that upgrades aren’t possible.

How many Skywards miles are needed for upgrades?

Emirates Skywards has a mileage calculator on its website, where you can search a specific route and find out how many miles you’d need for an upgrade, award ticket, etc. So to figure out how many miles you’ll need to upgrade, you’ll first want to figure out the type of ticket you’ve booked, and then plug that information to the calculator.

If you do have an upgrade that requires a lot of miles, keep in mind that the paid Skywards+ program offers up to a 20% rebate on the cost of upgrades, so that could make a membership worthwhile.

Let me also mention that only Skywards miles can be used to upgrade Emirates flights. While you can use other points currencies (like Air Canada Aeroplan and Qantas Frequent Flyer) to outright book awards on Emirates, you can’t use those rewards for upgrades on Emirates.

Lastly, there are no additional carrier imposed surcharges that are due when you’re upgrading. However, if there are any additional government taxes (like the UK Air Passenger Duty), those can be levied on upgrades.

What is Emirates upgrade availability like?

As is the case with any airline, Emirates has some capacity control on upgrades, at least in advance. As a general rule of thumb, confirmable first class and business class upgrade availability matches what would be available if outright redeeming miles for those cabins.

I’m not going to say availability is amazing and consistently available, but it’s often quite good, especially if planning far in advance or last minute.

As mentioned above, Flex and Flex Plus tickets can be upgraded in advance, starting at the time of booking. That comes with capacity controls. So it’s possible that there’s confirmable upgrade space, in which case you could immediately confirm your upgrade, without being waitlisted.

To see if there’s confirmable upgrade space, when you search for a flight while logged into your Skywards account, look for the “Miles upgrade available” text written underneath the flight on the search page. Then click on that, so you can see exactly which cabins have confirmable upgrade space.

For that matter, beyond just upgrade availability, you can also see the number of miles required when searching flights. When you see the available fare types for a flight you’re searching, you’ll see the cost to upgrade, plus any restrictions to be aware of.

If there’s not confirmable upgrade space, you can be waitlisted, and will remain on the waitlist until 48 hours before departure. The upgrade could clear any time up until that point. If the upgrade doesn’t clear at least 48 hours out, the upgrade list is canceled.

The idea is then that at the airport and onboard, you can once again request an upgrade. This applies to Flex Plus, Flex, and Saver passengers, since Saver passengers can’t upgrade in advance.

What’s so great about airport upgrades is that they have last seat availability, so assuming a good number of seats are still available in the cabin you’re looking at, and assuming you arrive at the airport relatively early, you should have extremely good luck with upgrading. This is a unique feature of the program that you won’t find with many other airlines.

Is upgrading Emirates flights with miles worth it?

Broadly speaking, I tend to think that if you’re looking to maximize value, your best is to outright redeem miles for the cabin you’re looking to travel in, rather than upgrade. That’s because it typically requires fewer miles, and eliminates any of the uncertainty of waitlisting.

That being said, understandably some people might have a ticket paid for as part of a work trip (or whatever), and then want to make their journey a bit more comfortable. Emirates Skywards upgrade costs generally aren’t cheap (especially from lower fares), but there are definitely situations that can get you outsized value.

For one, being able to upgrade is useful for those who want to experience Emirates first class, since you can’t outright redeem miles for that unless you have Skywards elite status.

But beyond that, it’s interesting to me how in some cases upgrades end up being a better deal than outright redeeming miles for the higher cabin.

For example, if you wanted to a book a one-way Skywards Flex Plus business class award ticket from New York (JFK) to Dubai (DXB), you’d pay 138,000 miles plus $835.40 in taxes and surcharges.

Meanwhile if you booked a one-way Skywards Flex Plus economy award ticket on the same flight, you’d pay 50,000 miles plus $203.40 in taxes and surcharges. Then if you wanted to upgrade — and the flight has confirmable upgrade space — you could upgrade to business class for 70,200 Skywards miles.

So that means in the end you’d pay 120,200 miles plus $203.40 in taxes and surcharges, rather than 138,000 miles plus $835.40. The main downside is that you just couldn’t then upgrade to first class. But still, I think this is an aspect of the upgrade program that many people overlook, even those who aren’t on a revenue ticket.

Bottom line

While Emirates Skywards is far from my favorite frequent flyer program, it’s ultimately the best option for those who want to fly in premium cabins on Emirates.

The good news is that Emirates has a really robust upgrade program. While the number of miles required for upgrades can be high, I appreciate how most type of tickets (including all Skywards award tickets) are upgradable, and also how upgrades have last seat availability on the day of departure. In some cases, booking a lower cabin award ticket and then immediately upgrading is cheaper than just outright redeeming for that higher cabin, which is odd, but…

What’s your take on Emirates’ upgrade program? Have you ever upgraded with Skywards miles?