While Emirates has always been restrictive in providing award seats in First Class to members of partner programs, it has now also tightened the conditions for Skywards members.

From now on, you must be an elite member to be able to use these awards. Regular customers should not really be affected by this, as you need so many points for these awards that you are usually a status customer anyway.

However, this measure clearly targets customers, especially in the USA, who accumulate large amounts of points through credit card programs and then convert them into Skywards points to use such awards. Often, these customers have, however, no loyalty towards Emirates at all – but often took these coveted seats to the detriment of the truly loyal customers in the past!