Emirates first class is a fantastic way to fly. Emirates offers incredible service and top-notch food and beverage options to first class passengers. And the seats themselves, even the old style ones shown below, are incredibly luxurious. Below you’ll find tips for finding and booking Emirates first class awards.
Overview
Emirates’ old first class (where the suite walls only rise part way to the ceiling, as shown above) is still considered one of the best first class products in the world, and their new first class is even better. It features fully enclosed floor to ceiling suites and luxury all around. Below you’ll find how to find flights that feature new suites, how to find first class award space, which points are best to use to book awards, and a trick for upgrading to first class.
How to find Emirates new suites routes
Emirates’ new first class suites are only available on Boeing 777-300ER aircraft. Among those that Emirates flies, Ben reports that only 9 have the new suites and that you can find where they’ve been recently flying by clicking through these links to FlightRadar24:
Once you find a route you want to investigate, you can look at the seat map to see if it’s the new product. In the image below, I used Booking.com to view the seat map for a flight from Geneva to Dubai. Since the seat map shows only three seats across, it must be the new product (the old configuration has four seats across).
How to find Emirates first class award space
The best way to find award availability on Emirates first class is with Seats.Aero. With the free version of the tool you can see awards only for the next couple of months, but with the paid version, you can see farther out. Here’s an example of finding award space from North America to Dubai:
- On the top menu, select Explore… Emirates Skywards
- Select Show flights from North America, to Asia (Seats.Aero includes the middle east in Asia)
- If you subscribe to the paid version of Seats.aero, click the box to switch from a 60 day view to a full year.
- Sort by “First”. The results in Green, if any, are what you want.
- Optionally search for your departing airport of interest.
- To find return flights, repeat all of the above, but change the “Show flights” section to from Asia, to North America.
To see if awards are available to partners, you’ll want to use Seats.Aero to explore Qantas awards since Qantas partners with Emirates and sometimes offers better award prices than Emirates itself. The following instructions require the Pro version of Seats.Aero (our affiliate link):
- On the top menu, select Explore… Qantas Frequent Flyer
- Click the Only 60 days drop-down box to switch to a Full year.
- Click the Airlines drop-down box and select Emirates.
- Select Show flights to match what you’re looking for. For example, to find first class flights to Dubai you might select North America, to Asia (Seats.Aero includes the middle east in Asia). Or, to find first class flights to Europe, you might select North America, to Europe. Or, for example, you might reverse these to find flights back to North America (e.g. Europe to North America, or Asia to North America).
- Sort by “First”. The results in Green, if any, are what you want.
- Optionally search for your departing airport of interest.
- To find return flights, repeat all of the above, but change the “Show flights” section to from Asia, to North America.
The Emirates upgrade trick
If you can’t find the award space you want, another great trick is to find and book business class and then use miles to upgrade at the airport. See Ben’s post here for full details: The Trick To Upgrading Emirates Flights With Miles
Which miles to use to book Emirates first class
If you’re flying entirely on Emirates, booking directly with Emirates miles may be your best option, but it’s worth checking prices with Qantas as well, to see which is cheapest. It’s also possible to book with Air Canada Aeroplan miles, but the award prices there are usually awful. Here are some example award prices:
| Route | Emirates | Qantas | Air Canada* |
|---|---|---|---|
| Miami to Bogota | 60,000 points + $106.00 USD | 64,500 points + $100.80 USD | 124,300 points + $99 CAD |
| Milan to NYC | 102,000 points + $131.00 EUR | 107,700 points + €130.32 EUR | 203,000 points + $136 CAD |
| Athens to Newark | 102,000 points + $137.00 EUR | 129,000 points + £116.30 GBP | 248,000 points + $145 CAD |
| Boston to Dubai | 163,500 points + $839.00 USD | 149,800 points + $834.20 USD | 526,400 points + $80 CAD |
| DC to Dubai | 163,500 points + $839.00 USD | 170,800 points + $834.20 USD | 575,900 points + $80 CAD |
| Chicago to Dubai | 163,500 points + $839.00 USD | 170,800 points + $834.20 USD | 575,900 + $80 CAD |
| San Francisco to Dubai | 186,000 points + $839.00 USD | 170,800 points + $834.20 USD | 603,900 + $80 CAD |
- Emirates award price: Use the Emirates Miles Calculator to find the price they’ll charge in miles. For example, one-way from the US east coast to Dubai currently costs 163,500 miles. One-way from the US west coast to Dubai costs 186,000 miles. You’ll also be on the hook for significant fuel surcharges on most routes.
- Qantas award price: If booking through Qantas, the award will be priced according to Qantas’ distance-based Partner Classic Flight Reward table. As you can see in the example pricing, above, Qantas miles are sometimes a better option than Emirates miles for booking Emirates first class.
- Air Canada Aeroplan price: If booking through Air Canada, there’s no good way to know the price other than to search for the award through Air Canada’s website to see how much they’ll charge. In all examples that I’ve seen to-date, Air Canada charges way, way, way more miles than Emirates or Qantas.
How to use fewer miles with Skywards+
If you’re planning to book Emirates first class awards, it may be worth subscribing to Skywards+ as long as you remember to cancel the subscription before the second year fee comes due. The cheapest option costs $399 per year and offers a one-time 20% discount on a Classic Reward flight and the discount applies to the entire booking even if the booking includes multiple people. The savings only apply to the point price of the award. The taxes and fees stay the same.
Let’s say you’re planning to book a one-way first class flight from North America to Dubai for two adults. In that case Emirates would charge 163,500 points per person, or 327,000 altogether. If you subscribe first to Skywards+, though, the total point price would be reduced to 261,600 miles. That’s a savings of 65,400 miles. With the $399 Classic package, that’s like buying Emirates miles for only 0.6 cents each. That’s a good deal.
All that said, there’s a huge limitation to this approach: You must have the full number of points before the discount in your account before you can book the discounted award! So, this really is more like buying miles than saving miles. To me, that kills this option. Unless I had a near term need for more Emirates miles, I wouldn’t want to go out of my way to buy more miles than I need right now.
Zach at Monkey Miles has a good post detailing his experience with Skywards+: My experience using Emirates Skywards+ to get 20% off my Emirates First Class GameChanger Award Booking.
How to get the miles
Transferable points are the way to go. Here are the US-based transferable points programs that transfer to each of the programs discussed above:
| Rewards Program | Amex Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) | Chase Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) | Citi Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) | Capital One Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) | Bilt Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) | Wells Fargo Transfer Ratio (and transfer time) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Air Canada Aeroplan | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (~5 Minutes) | ||
| Emirates Skywards | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (~5 Minutes) | |
| Qantas Frequent Flyer | 1 to 1 (Instant) | 1 to 1 (~1 day) | 1 to 1 (~1 day) |
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Hi Greg,
You said “one-time 20% discount on a Classic Reward flight (these are saver awards)”.
To my knowledge, Emirates has the following 4 fares for J.
Business Special: not bookable with points
Business Saver: bookable with points but round trip only
Business Flex: not bookable with points
Business Flex Plus: bookable with points one way and round trip
And they have only one fare for F bookable with points.
First Flex Plus: bookable with points one way and round trip
You said “Classic Reward Flight” is Emirates’ “saver awards”. By that, did you mean their “Business Saver” fare? If so, I don’t think that is correct because the Money Miles link you posted shows that he was able to book a “First Flex Plus” with a 20% discount. I think the 20% discount applies to all rewards booking not just “saver”.
I may be misinterpreting what you meant by “saver”.
I’ll take out the mention of “saver awards” because it is confusing. When searching for award flights on Emirates’ website, there’s an option to “Book Classic Rewards Flight”. If the result shows up in that search, then you should be able to get the 20% discount.
Excellent tips. Big thank you for referencing Ben’s article — very helpful.
Going to be looking to book either the Milan or Athens route in August of 2025. Been doing some sample searches through June of next year and seeing very little showing up in either business or first – just a few scattered business seats on some random days. Any insights as to how first and business are released? Is it typically rolling at the 330 day mark (or whatever Emirates uses) or is it really random. Going to subscribe to pro.aero but any insights into timing would be great.