EK Skywards Miles - confused

[Exascot]

Between my wife and I we have over 100,000 EK Skyward Miles. EK is our favourite airline and we find the office staff very helpful but whenever I e-mail to ask what we can do with these I always get refered back to their very confusing Skyward Miles website. Does anyone know if we can cash these in for a two night stay at a hotel in DXB on our way between ATH and JNB in November. We will be travelling 1st so we will have even more miles after this booking. This is a very simple question which I just can't find out the answer to. This is about the only thing we would like to use them for apart from a discount and I don't think that that can be done either

[KBPsen]

What's confusing? On the Skywards website the partner hotels are listed as are the miles required per stay and how to book.

[Exascot]

Sorry I didn't notice your reply. Well I am having great difficulty with this. All I can find is how many miles you get when you PAY to stay at these hotels.

[Hotel Tango]

Tried myself and I have to agree with the Exascot. Perhaps the only way is to complete their online reward form and see what the result is.

[Exascot]

Having failed with the hotel option I saw that we had enough points to go ATH - DXB return economy. So I looked at the first price fare DXB - JNB return. It is about 9,000€. The price first class ATH - JNB return via DXB is only 5,400€

Then their site wouldn't work so I booked by e-mail with the ATH office. They
have stated it is 6,300€

Their reason: 'Please note that our booking system works in real time and so availability /fares may change from minute to minute.'

By 1,000€

[KBPsen]

I honestly fail to see what is difficult.

1. Open the website.
2. Place cursor on 'Earn & Spend'.
3. Click on 'Spending Miles' in the drop-down menu.
4. Click on 'Hotels' in the menu on the left.
5. Select hotel.

[Hotel Tango]

That's interesting because on the website I have in front of me there is no earn & spend option. Or does this only show after loging in as a Skyward member?

[KBPsen]

You only need to be logged in to use the online redemption form or the What Can I Do With My Miles? function.

[Hotel Tango]

OK Exascot I've found what you and I did wrong. We didn't read KBPsen's post closely! Go to the Skywards website www.skywards.com and there you will find earn and spend. I (and possibly you) went to the Emirates website and clicked on the Skywards tab which does not include this feature.

Might have helped us dunces if KBPsen had included a link as I just did

[KBPsen]

I assumed, foolishly perhaps, that someone who are a member and refers to the Skywards website in their post knows about Skywards.com.

In any case, logging in to the Skywards programme on Emirates.com automatically transfers you to Skywards.com.

[Exascot]

In any case, logging in to the Skywards programme on Emirates.com automatically transfers you to Skywards.com.

Not in my location, perhaps this is the problem. Doing as you say above takes me to:

Skywards | Emirates Airline Not the same page.

This does not show 'earn & spend'. So thank you all for the advise. I have now checked skywards.com and there it is.

Incidentally the followup to my last post about an extra 1,000€ it was because we wanted to stay a night in DXB thus I guess it wasn't effectively straight through. You would have thought EK would want you to stay there and spend more money in their country. So now we will just spend 12 hrs there. Shame really I don't mind the odd day there. Oh well their loss.

[Hotel Tango]

Not a member in my case.

[Exascot]

I have now had a look at all the hotels that are available to us with the air miles and there is hardly one that we can ever use.

I feel a letter coming on a a pigeon sent down to EK in DXB.