I’ve been in the points game for almost a decade, and I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve never had the luxury of experiencing an Emirates flight. Not in economy, not in business, and definitely not in first, so to say flying on the Emirates A380 has been on the bucket list is an understatement.
My family is headed on a big South East Asia / India trip in April, and one of our flight segments is between Bangkok and Hong Kong. Sure, there are plenty of options, but what really piqued my interest was the Emirates fifth freedom flight between Bangkok (BKK) and Hong Kong (HKG).
As I was shopping for flights, not only was Emirates the best option in terms of departure time (we have an 8pm flight to Delhi to catch from Hong Kong), I noticed very reasonably-priced business class flights to Hong Kong on their A380.
It’s a short 3 hour and 5 minute flight, but I said, “what the heck?”, this is an opportune time to “splurge” on a special birthday flight and get to experience something that’s been aspirational to me forever.
Instead of figuring out award space, I decided to redeem a total of 99,016 Ultimate Rewards points at 1.5x using my Chase Sapphire Reserve to outright buy the 4 flights, which works out to a little under 25,000 points per person for a paid A380 Emirates business class flight (and we’ll actually be able to earn miles back by flying).
The great thing about Emirates (and a number of other foreign carriers) is that tickets for children 2-11 years old traveling in a separate seat are discounted from the full adult fare. In my case, the kids were about $100 cheaper, almost a 25% discount. That little surprise discount was icing on the cake and helped me to internally validate the bougie redemption.
As of October 1, 2017, EK 384 is a two-cabin flight featuring 58 flatbed business class seats in a 1-2-1 configuration and 557 (!) economy seats. The Emirates (EK) A380 business class cabin features spacious seats which offer 48-inch pitch, 79-inches in bed length, and an 18.5-inch width. Each seat also features a personal minibar stocked with soft drinks.
It’s definitely a quick flight, but long enough for me to take it all in. I’m excited to experience a full meal service, the novelty of playing family games of UNO while sipping drinks in the swanky center bar, and earning Alaska Airlines miles. Unfortunately, itineraries that are exclusively between Bangkok and Hong Kong or Bangkok and Phnom Penh are not eligible for Emirates’ complimentary chauffeur-drive.
Photo courtesy of Emirates
Bottom Line
The marvel of being upstairs on a double decker jumbo jet will never cease to amaze me, and it’s redemptions like these that remind me to never underestimate the possibilities of buying business class flights with points.
Bougie? Hell yeah. But it’s OK to splurge and redeem in ways that make you happy. YOLO!
Have you used your points to book Emirates A380 business class before? Feel free to share you experiences below!
That’s a great post Angelina! It’s the simple things that make this a great life. I’ve been in the game for a minute too, haven’t experienced EK either, and essentially deleted them from my memory because of the high surcharges on outright award tickets but you just gave me a different angle. I appreciate that.
Thanks AJ! Yes same for me – I always considered it off the radar for the same reasons, especially for a family trip. So stumbling across this option seemed like a great way to experience the product :).
Can’t wait to read the trip report.
Thanks Dan! Hope you are well :)
Any idea on how many miles would you earn after the trip is completed? Do you get any bonus miles due to flying in Business class?
I checked “wheretocredit.com” and Emirates “I” class earns 225% RDM, so if my math is correct, I’m expecting to each earn about 2,362 Alaska Airlines miles.
This is one of my favorite ways to travel to Bangkok. Enjoy the trip as this is an easy flight for families. It is also reasonably priced given the quality of an Emirates experience.
That’s a great redemption price, and well within what I’d consider paying $ for. Excellent article!
Hoping to try their F product in the next few years. Still working on the 200K Spark SUB, which combined with spend will be 300K points/150K Emirates Miles.
In the meantime settling for Etihad Apartments later this year.