Convert your Emirates Skywards miles to (almost) hard cash

Emirates has recently signed up as a partner of Heathrow Rewards, meaning you can now convert your Heathrow Rewards points to Emirates Skywards at a 1:1 rate.

Interestingly, however, Emirates Skywards has also joined Heathrow Rewards as its first “transfer in” partner. This means you can convert your Emirates Skywards miles into Heathrow Rewards points at a rate of – ahem – 6,000 Emirates Skywards miles for 2,000 Heathrow Rewards points.

Those 2,000 Heathrow Rewards points will get you a £20 voucher to spend at Heathrow Airport, or on the Heathrow Express railway service.

Clearly, there’s something of a margin working against you here: you can transfer from Heathrow Rewards to Skywards at 1:1, but from Skywards to Heathrow Rewards at 3:1. On the face of it, that isn’t the greatest deal ever.

However, if your Emirates Skywards miles are expiring and you can’t find anything else to spend them on here, or through easyJet, it’s certainly better than nothing.

Note that any Skywards points converted to Heathrow Rewards points cannot then be converted into airline miles with the other Heathrow Rewards air miles partners (Avios, Etihad Guest, Miles&More and Virgin Flying Club). Headforpoints.com helpfully tested this and shared the results with us, and sure enough the points are limited in redemption options to vouchers only.

If you do want to get a bit more bang for your buck, you can sign up for a new Heathrow Rewards account using promo code EM3, and credit a £25 spend to that (which can be in whole or part covered by vouchers) – you will then get a Heathrow Rewards bonus of 1100 points, which can be exchanged for 1100 air miles or a £10 voucher).