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The complete guide to buying Emirates Skywards Miles

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This post includes everything you need to know about using cash to buy Emirates Skywards Miles.

Buy Emirates Skywards Miles

Why buy Emirates Skywards Miles?

Buying miles directly from Emirates is one of the easiest and quickest ways to accumulate Emirates Skywards Miles without flying.

This can be particularly useful if your miles balance is short of the amount needed to make a reward booking or an upgrade.

How much does it cost to buy Emirates Skywards Miles?

Emirates Skywards miles are sold in increments of 1,000 miles. The standard price is $30 USD (AED 110) per 1,000 miles. This works out at 3 cents per mile.

That is not exactly cheap. However, Skywards runs frequent bonus promotions. You can expect a bonus offer from Skywards almost every other month. Skywards has run five bonus or discount promotions ranging from 20-40% this year.

Current promo: Buy Emirates Skywards Miles with a bonus of up to 30%

The current Skywards promotion is a bonus of up to 25% when you buy or gift miles before 22 September 2024. Find complete details on the promotion here.

How many miles can you buy?

Silver and Blue Skywards members can purchase up to 100,000 miles annually. Gold and Platinum tier members can buy up to 200,000 miles per calendar year.

A My Family account is one way to increase the number of Skywards Miles you can buy every year. Emirates Skyward allows up to 8 family members to pool miles in a My Family account.

A family would potentially be able to buy and pool up to 800,000 Skywards miles annually. That figure would be even higher if any members have Gold or Platinum Guest status.

How do you buy miles?

You must log in to your Skywards account to buy or gift Skywards Miles. Click on the option to BuyMiles under Earn Miles on the menu bar.

Buy Skywards Miles

Select the number of miles you want to buy from the dropdown tab. Add your credit card details and confirm payment.

If you have a Skywards co-brand credit card, pay using that card to earn extra Skywards Miles on the transaction.

Emirates warns that it may take up to 48 hours for purchased miles to appear in your account and be available to use. However, in my experience, they have appeared almost instantaneously. You may need to log out and back into your Skyward account to refresh the balance.

Other ways to get Emirates Skywards Miles fast

There are several other ways to earn Emirates Skywards quickly without getting on a plane.

One option is transferring points from other loyalty programmes to Skywards. Partner loyalty points that can be converted into Skywards Miles include:

  • ADCB Touchpoints
  • American Express Membership Rewards
  • Citibank – Citi Rewards
  • Commercial Bank of Dubai Reward Points
  • FAB Rewards
  • Mashreq Salaam Points
  • Standard Chartered Reward Points
  • Air Miles
  • Hilton Honors
  • Marriott Bonvoy

The minimum number of points required to transfer to Emirates Skywards will vary considerably between programmes. The conversion rate of points to miles will also differ.

Some programmes add a bonus when you convert a certain number of points to miles. For instance, Marriott Bonvoy will add an extra 5,000 miles for every 60,000 points you transfer to airline miles.

Is buying Emirates Skywards Miles worth it?

Yes, it can be. Buying Skywards Miles can be very helpful if you need to top up your balance for a specific trip or upgrade, particularly in this current period of unusually high cash fares.

Personally, I would not buy Skywards Miles at 3 cents per mile except for a tiny amount to top up if I was just short of the miles needed for a reward or upgrade.

If you are going to buy Skywards Miles, it is best to try to do so when a bonus or discount offer is available. Thankfully, these happen reasonably frequently.

The current Skywards promotion is a bonus of up to 30% when you buy or gift miles before 22 September 2024. Find complete details on the promotion here.