Emirates Massively Raises Carrier Charges

Emirates Massively Raises Carrier Charges for Qantas Frequent Flyers
Qantas Frequent Flyer members now need to pay a lot more when redeeming points for Emirates flights. Photo: Emirates.

Emirates has massively increased the carrier charges that Qantas Frequent Flyer members need to pay when redeeming a reward seat, without warning. This is the airline-imposed surcharge that needs to be paid in addition to airport and government-levied fees and taxes when booking a Classic Reward flight.

For a round-trip Emirates Business Class reward flight from Perth to London, for example, you would now have to pay 278,000 Qantas points and almost $2,300 in taxes & charges per passenger! That’s around $1,000 more than you would’ve paid to book the same Qantas Frequent Flyer redemption yesterday.

Earlier this week, Emirates began increasing carrier charges on some routes when booking reward flights with the airline’s own Skywards miles. At the time, Qantas Frequent Flyer redemptions were unaffected. But now, as Point Hacks has pointed out, the significantly increased co-payments that apply when redeeming points are being passed on to Qantas Frequent Flyer members as well.

How much have Emirates carrier charges increased by?

The amount of the increase to Emirates carrier charges varies by route. But in many cases, you’ll now need to pay significantly more to redeem your Qantas Frequent Flyer points for an Emirates Classic Flight Reward.

Of course, neither Emirates nor Qantas publishes a list of carrier charges – so it is not possible for frequent flyers to easily compare the old vs new rates. But below are a few examples we can give you of the old and new carrier charges.

Note that these amounts do not include other taxes & fees (such as government taxes), which also need to be paid in addition to the points required. These amounts are in AUD, are subject to change and are based on one-way flights, so double the amounts for round-trip pricing:

Route Class of travel Old carrier charge New carrier charge
Australia to Dubai Economy ~$76 ~$171
Australia to Dubai Business/First ~$227 ~$581
Australia to Europe Economy ~$113 ~$239
Australia to Europe Business/First ~$340 ~$855
Australia to South Africa Economy ~$113 ~$239
Australia to South Africa Business/First ~$340 ~$855
Australia to USA Economy ~$151 ~$308
Australia to USA Business/First ~$453 ~$1,128
New Zealand to Europe Economy ~$98 ~$258
New Zealand to Europe Business/First ~$310 ~$921
Europe to Australia Economy ~$113 ~234
Europe to Australia Business/First ~$339 ~$837

These carrier charges appear to roughly match those now charged to Emirates Skywards members when redeeming Skywards miles for an Emirates Classic Reward.

Using the Perth-London route as an example, a round-trip Business Class Classic Reward flying with Emirates via Dubai would now attract a whopping $2,296.70 in taxes, fees & carrier charges per passenger.

Qantas Classic Flight Reward pricing for an Emirates booking from Perth to London.
Qantas Classic Flight Reward pricing for an Emirates booking from Perth to London.

Of this amount, $1675.60 is carrier charges payable directly to Emirates. We can see this by clicking on “Flight amount breakdown” on the Qantas booking page:

A breakdown of the taxes & charges on the Perth-London round-trip booking
A breakdown of the taxes & charges on the Perth-London round-trip booking.

To put this into perspective, you could buy a commercial Economy Class ticket on the same flights for over $500 less! However, redeeming Qantas points does still work out to be better value than paying approximately $8,000 for a commercial Business Class ticket.

EK flight pricing PER-LON
You could buy an Economy ticket for less!

Here’s another example that was posted by an AFF member:

I have EK reward seats MEL-SEA (F) at the time of booking the fees and taxes were AUD634, checking today it would be AUD1308 for the same flights.
Matt_01, 5 March 2022

Another blow for Qantas Frequent Flyer members

In September 2020, Qantas Frequent Flyer increased the number of points required to book a Classic Flight Reward on Emirates. At the time, Qantas justified this by saying that Emirates had recently reduced its carrier charges, so members would still get better overall value in many cases.

Of course, now that Emirates has massively increased its carrier charges, there are no changes to the number of Qantas points required to book an Emirates flight.

At least when Qantas Frequent Flyer increased the points required to book on Emirates, it gave its members three months of notice. There was no warning whatsoever about this latest change.

Other options for travel to the Middle East

As an alternative for flights to the Middle East, Qantas Frequent Flyer members can also redeem points for Qatar Airways flights. But Qatar Airways limits Business Class award availability for Qantas Frequent Flyer members to just one seat per flight to and from Australia.

As another option, you could redeem Velocity points to fly with Etihad Airways from Sydney or Melbourne to Abu Dhabi. Etihad Airways releases up to two Business Class reward seats per flight to Velocity members.

Qatar Airways and Etihad also impose their own carrier charges, but these generally won’t be as high as Emirates’ ridiculous new carrier charges.

 

Join the discussion on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum: Emirates hikes up carrier charges on reward seats

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include economics, aviation & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.
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The charges are similar to paying for an economy ticket!

Reply 1 Like

EK412 was showing as doing the SYD-CHC route from 1st July previously. But it looks like it has been removed or pushed back.

Reply Like

I have EK reward seats MEL-SEA (F) at the time of booking the fees and taxes were AUD634, checking today it would be AUD1308 for the same flights.

Reply 1 Like

Oh raspberries. That's a nasty shot to the pills of the non-statused QFF-point accumulator. Really nasty.

Reply 3 Likes

So a return flight to Europe in J now costs 318k Qantas Points + $2k in cash. Doesn’t seem very “rewarding”!

Reply 1 Like

So a return flight to Europe in J now costs 318k Qantas Points + $2k in cash. Doesn’t seem very “rewarding”!

Look at the bright/ positive side, a random search MEL-CDG return the cheapest cash price in J was around AUD7,700, so you are still saving around $5,700 😉😛🙄 Jokes aside it is a pretty big hike and given EK were moved to the standard partners reward rates it hardly seems worth using EK moving forward.

Reply 7 Likes

Is there any chance this is just linked or limited to rewards ex-AUS?

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Not sure but it may be across the board, if you read the point hack post it references another post from OMAAT earlier this week.

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Booked 2 reward tickets FCO-DXB (Economy) and DXB-BNE (J) with Emirates last week, taxes were $828 for both.
Which reminds me, must chase up the e-ticket numbers!

Reply 1 Like

Others may disagree, but this sudden move is a major reason why I endeavour not to 'bank' FF points accumulated through any airline's scheme ad infinitum.

The strategy has been impossible for the last 25 months, but it's one way of recognising these airlines hold all the cards.

Another way is to simply book the best value (not just 'price', but seat configuration and other factors) fare and rid oneself of an obsession with obtaining status or FF points. That will go against the grain for many AFFers.

Reply 6 Likes