Hi,
Sorry, another complete beginner here! Hoping someone can help please.
I have 1 million Amex points that I want to transfer before the April 15 deadline. Looking at Emirates but wondered if they will be valid for sharing with family. I have family pooling set up with Emirates, but I thought that points transferred from credit cards can’t go into the pool. Does anyone know if this is correct? I don’t want to transfer them all and then find it’s just me that benefits.
Thanks
Hi ozcoast,
The short answer: call Emirates and ask them. Now. Time is short.
The long answer: I’m part of an Emirates Skywards “my family” account myself and I had no idea that points from credit cards can’t be pooled. But now that I’ve looked at Emirates’ website, I’m not so sure: over and over again, they talk about “points from flights” and they never talk about anything else. So you may be on to something!
I’m also wondering whether if you want to share your points, another FF programme might be a better fit for you? Have you looked into KrisFlyer (for Star Alliance flights) or Asia Miles (for Oneworld flights)? Their family sharing system seems to be a little more flexible than Emirates, and you’ll also be able to find flights with them where the taxes and surcharges are lower than Emirates’. You may well have already looked into this and have decided that Emirates is indeed best for your situation – in which case, all good. But if you haven’t, I’d seriously consider one of the other programmes.
I hope this helps. Now go and call Emirates and let us know what they say!
Hi sixtyeight
Well, I rang Emirates and it is true, points earned by credit card cannot be transferred into a “my family” account. That account is simply to allow less frequent flyers to pool their points to get to an award ticket. Apparently not a problem, however, because the points instead will go to my individual account but I can then use them to buy a ticket or upgrade a ticket for anyone else. If I wish to upgrade a ticket then I would need the right amount of points because you can’t do pay and points.
Must admit I’m not sure whether to deposit my points into Skywards or KrisFlyer. I’ve been looking around the various postings and KF seems to get a better review in terms of award seat availability and cost. Our main travel is to the UK and I only favoured Emirates because they fly to Birmingham. Hmmm I’m now leaning towards KF. We do have KF accounts because we used to fly Singapore all the time - maybe it’s time to go back to them?
Thanks for your reply and help with this.
Very interesting.
Yes, Emirates flies into more destinations in the UK – London, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and possibly one or two others I can’t think of. Singapore just flies into London and Manchester. However, availability on Singapore is much better, their taxes/surcharges are lower and you need fewer points as well! Also remember that with Singapore you can use Star Alliance airlines, so (for example) you could fly into somewhere like Frankfurt and then catch a Lufthansa flight into Birmingham. It’s one more stop, but again you’re paying much less in points.
Over to you!
Thank you - much food for thought.