Emirates Is Restricting First Class Award Space From May 12th

Emirates has, no doubt, one of the best first-class products in the sky. It’s a popular choice for many frequent flyers, but in a surprise move the airline will restrict access to award seats to Skywards Silver, Gold and Platinum members from 12 May.

This news arrived with very little notice. The airline quietly posted a pop-up message on some pages stating “Effective 12 May 2025 Classic Rewards in First Class will be a tier benefit available only to Platinum, Gold and Silver tier members.”

Since this only appears to apply to Skywards Classic Rewards, it is likely that all Skywards members will still be able to use their points to upgrade before departure. For example, you could redeem Skywards Miles for a business-class seat and upgrade to first class if seats are released in the lead-up to departure.

Will Qantas Frequent Flyer members miss out?

We’ve reached out to both Qantas and Emirates for comment, but at this stage it is unclear whether Qantas Frequent Flyer members will also lose access to Emirates first-class award space.

Tip: learn how to use your Qantas Points on Emirates flights.

If you’re currently looking for a flight, it would be wise to lock one in today, just in case.

There’s also a good chance this won’t affect Qantas Frequent Flyers. After all, Emirates makes substantial revenue from these types of redemptions. A Qantas Classic Flight Reward in Emirates first class costs almost $4,000 in taxes and fees for travel from Australia to Europe, not factoring in that you need more than 400,000 Qantas Points to book once the devaluation kicks in on 5 August.

If we value Qantas Points at around 1 cent each, that means a first-class award ticket has a cash value of over $8,000. If those seats would otherwise fly empty, this seems like a huge missed opportunity for Emirates, which has just announced record profits.

Is this caused by American credit cards?

Our American friends have a much more competitive credit-card landscape, and it is very easy and lucrative to earn points. Earlier this month, people noticed a message on the American Express US Membership Rewards transfer page, which reads “Beginning 28 May, the ability to transfer Membership Rewards® points to Emirates Skywards® Miles will be temporarily unavailable. Please visit Emirates.com for more information. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.” Similar messages have also appeared for Chase credit-card members.

This suggests there has been some “falling out” between Emirates and its US credit-card partners, no doubt over financial compensation. Of course, we’ll never know for sure, but one can only speculate.

Summing up

In a surprise move, it seems Emirates would rather fly empty seats than make them available as award space from 12 May. It is unknown whether Qantas and Aeroplan members will also be affected.