Earlier this year it was confirmed that Barclays would be launching an Emirates cobranded card. This new partnership is now live and there are two cards on offer. Let’s take a look in this quick review.
Contents
Emirates Skywards Premium World Elite Mastercard
- Annual fee of $499
- Sign up bonus of 40,000 miles after $3,000 in spend within the first 90 days
- Emirates Skywards Gold Status (you get this instantly in your first year and then need to spend $40,000 per cardmember year to keep it)
- 10,000 anniversary miles when you spend $30,000 each cardmember year
- Priority Pass Select membership
- Global Entry or TSA PreCheck (once every 5 years up to $100 )
- Card earns at the following rates:
- 3x miles per $1 spent on emirates.com or at the Emirates Sales office
- 2x miles per $1 spent on airfares, hotel stays and car rentals
- 1x miles per $1 spent on all other purchases
- 25% savings when you purchase or gift miles
Emirates Skywards Rewards World Elite Mastercard
- Annual fee of $99
- Sign up bonus of 30,000 miles after $3,000 in spend within the first 90 days
- Emirates Skywards Silver Status (you get this instantly in your first year and then need to spend $20,000 per cardmember year to keep it)
- Card earns at the following rates:
- 3x miles per $1 spent on emirates.com or at the Emirates Sales office
- 2x miles per $1 spent on airfares, hotel stays and car rentals
- 1x miles per $1 spent on all other purchases
- 25% savings when you purchase or gift miles
Our Verdict
The main selling point of these cards seems to be the elite status. If you’re flying enough for this status to actually be useful chances are you already have it from flying so much. The $499 annual fee on the premium rewards card is ridiculous, especially considering you need to spend $40,000 annually to keep status on the card and the fact that earning rates are low across the board. Both cards seem dead on arrival to me, although I guess if they decide to offer higher sign up bonuses in the future they might be worth considering. We won’t be adding either offer to the best credit card bonus sign up page.
What makes the most sense, the cards ridiculousness matches the year it was released… 2020…
What a useless offer, that too in middle of a pandemic. This was launched, just for the sake of launching these cards.
Indeed, DOA
Flown them many times all over the world: you get what you pay for. Often very nice, reliable and enjoyable. The “fluff” with this card however is just silly.
Silver and Gold do next to nothing, except maybe the lounge access, but there are so many alternatives for that. Compared to status with DL/UA/AA, you’ll be disappointed. Even Platinum does not provide complimentary upgrades.
Point redemptions are misleading at best, especially the surcharges. “Just 40K to upgrade to business! (…plus $1500)”
They also have few worthwhile partner airlines, other than jetBlue, but again: surcharges. Getting Mint lie flat transcon via this SUB may be the only silver lining but have never tried that and doubt Emirates would make it easy.
Let’s not forget Emirates was not fair or kind when it came to refunds earlier this year. They cancelled many flights, only offering airline credit, refusing to refund customers, unless you successfully forced a chargeback. I had to.
Oh, and Barclays.. sheesh. I’d expect them to shut down apps after only a few months. DOA indeed
So their status doesn’t even get you any partner benefits (I know they’re not part of an alliance but sometimes you still get partner benefits if the airlines have worked something out)? That’s the only real reason I’d see for these cards, if there were worthwhile partner benefits it could be useful to be able to basically buy status if you don’t already have it anywhere else and had a bunch of flying with their partners coming up.
Doa
Also pass…..1x in regular spend isnt worthwhile as plenty of other cards give 1.5x or higher…..with the current trend you’d think there would be a grocery category.
Dead on Arrival
In other news: (Bloomberg 9/15/2020) Apple Inc. on Tuesday ended its longtime card partnership with Barclays Plc, a move designed to focus attention on its own Apple Card product-financing plans.
Yeap, big pass unless they improve the SUB or improve elite status benefits long term. Otherwise, pretty useless
Sure, both are DOA.