How to Book Emirates First (and Business) Class with Qantas Points

Flying Emirates First Class, with its private suites, onboard showers on the A380, and Dom Pérignon on tap, is a bucket-list item for many travel enthusiasts. Similarly, their Business Class offers a highly refined experience. However, accessing these premium cabins using points, particularly First Class, has recently become more challenging.

As of May 12, 2025, Emirates Skywards significantly restricted the ability of its non-elite members to book First Class “Classic Rewards” using their own miles. This was a blow to many who were saving up Skywards miles for that ultimate aspirational redemption.

But don’t despair! There’s a fantastic alternative route that still provides access to these coveted seats: Qantas Frequent Flyer, the loyalty program of Australia’s flag carrier and a close partner of Emirates. This guide will walk you through exactly how you can leverage Qantas points to book your dream Emirates First or Business Class flight. You can still use Emirates skyward miles to book Economy and upgrade to business or first

Why Qantas Points for Emirates Flights?

With the changes to Emirates Skywards, Qantas Frequent Flyer has emerged as a prime way for many travelers to book Emirates’ premium cabins, especially First Class. Here’s why it’s worth considering:

1. Continued Access to First Class Awards: This is the biggest draw. While Emirates Skywards has limited First Class award bookings using their miles to its own Silver, Gold, and Platinum elite members (as of May 12, 2025), Qantas members (regardless of their Qantas status) can generally still search for and book Emirates First Class award seats, subject to availability.
2. Potential for Transfer Bonuses: Many major bank reward programs that partner with Qantas occasionally offer transfer bonuses. This means you might receive, for example, a 20-30% bonus on the points you transfer to Qantas. Such bonuses effectively reduce the number of bank points needed for your Emirates flight, a benefit you might not always get when transferring directly to Skywards.
3. Booking Business Class & Comparing Costs: Qantas also allows redemptions for Emirates Business Class. Because Qantas uses a distance-based award chart for partner redemptions, the points required will be fixed based on your route. Emirates Skywards, for its own flights, has different award types (e.g., Classic Saver, Classic Flex Plus) and uses a Miles Calculator, meaning the cost can vary. This difference in pricing structures means that for some routes or dates, using Qantas points for Emirates Business Class might be more advantageous, especially when factoring in potential transfer bonuses to Qantas. Always compare if multiple booking options are available to you.

The primary focus for many using this Qantas strategy will be securing those elusive First Class seats, but Business Class remains a viable and excellent option too.

Step 1: Getting Qantas Points – Your Transfer Options

To book these fantastic Emirates awards through Qantas, you first need Qantas Frequent Flyer points. While you can earn Qantas points by flying Qantas or its partner airlines, or through various non-flying partners, the fastest way for those in the US to accumulate a large balance of Qantas points is often through credit card welcome bonuses.

Several major flexible bank loyalty programs allow you to transfer the points you earn from their travel rewards credit cards directly to Qantas Frequent Flyer, typically at a favorable 1:1 ratio. This means 1,000 credit card points usually become 1,000 Qantas points.

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By focusing on cards that earn these transferable currencies, you can take advantage of lucrative sign-up bonuses and everyday spending to build up your Qantas points balance relatively quickly.

Pro Tip: Always keep an eye out for transfer bonuses! Occasionally, bank programs offer a bonus (e.g., 20-30% more points) when you transfer points to partner airlines, including Qantas. Timing your transfers during these promotions can significantly reduce the number of credit card points you need for your award flight.

Step 2: Finding Elusive Emirates Award Space with Seats.aero

One of the biggest challenges in booking premium cabin awards, especially on sought-after airlines like Emirates, is finding availability. Manually searching day by day on an airline’s website can be incredibly time-consuming. This is where third-party award search tools come in, and Seats.aero is a powerful one that can greatly simplify the process.

Seats.aero continuously scans for award availability across various airline programs and routes, including Qantas partner awards for Emirates flights. Here’s a general approach to using it to find potential Emirates First or Business Class seats bookable with Qantas points:

1. Navigate to Seats.aero: Open the Seats.aero website in your browser. You’ll likely need to create a free account and log in to use its features.
2. Select the Qantas Program: Look for the section where you can explore by frequent flyer program. You’ll want to find and select “Qantas Frequent Flyer” as the program you’re interested in searching through.
3. Specify Emirates as the Airline: Within the Qantas program search on Seats.aero, there should be an option or filter to specify the operating airline. Select “Emirates” here. This tells the tool you’re looking for Emirates flights that are bookable using Qantas points.
4. Set Your Route (Be Specific!):
   • For the origin, select the region “North America” (or you can often input specific airports like JFK, IAD, LAX, YYZ, etc.).
   • For the destination, it’s often best to be quite specific. For most Emirates flights, your primary destination hub will be “Dubai (DXB)”. The “Explore” functions on tools like Seats.aero might not always surface complex connecting itineraries or all options easily when searching broad regions for partner awards.
   • Pro Tip: If you are aware of specific Emirates fifth-freedom routes that Qantas has access to (e.g., New York JFK to Milan MXP, or Sydney SYD to Christchurch CHC), search for those exact airport pairs directly. This targeted approach often yields clearer results for these unique routes than a broad regional search.
5. Sort for Your Desired Class of Service: Seats.aero typically displays results in a table format.
   • To see Business Class availability, click on the “Business Class” column header or tab to sort the results, bringing dates with Business Class seats to the forefront. To then order these results chronologically, hold the Shift key while clicking on the date column header (or the Business Class header again, depending on the tool’s specific multi-sort behavior). This will give you a clear list of Business Class availability ordered by date.
   • You can do the exact same process for First Class by using its respective column header/tab.
6. Explore the Results: Seats.aero will then display a calendar or list view showing dates where it has found Emirates award availability on your chosen route(s) bookable via Qantas. It will often show the number of points Qantas typically charges and the specific flight numbers.

Using a tool like Seats.aero can quickly give you a list of dates with potential availability, saving you hours of manual searching. It’s excellent for identifying possibilities.

Important Note on Seats.aero Versions & Verification:

• The free version of Seats.aero is a great starting point but typically limits your search window to about 60 days out.
• The paid “Pro” version (which, as of mid-2025, costs around $9.99 USD per month) unlocks the ability to search for award availability across the entire year and often provides more features. In my opinion, if you’re serious about finding a flight that could cost $15,000 or more, a $9.99 monthly investment to secure that availability is definitely worth considering!

However, always remember: award availability is highly dynamic and can change rapidly. The data on third-party sites isn’t always 100% live. Therefore, it’s crucial to use Seats.aero as your starting point to find promising dates. The next critical step is to verify that availability directly on the Qantas website before making any point transfers.

Step 3: Verifying and Booking on the Qantas Website

Once Seats.aero (or another tool) has given you some promising dates with potential Emirates First or Business Class availability using Qantas points, the next crucial step is to verify this directly on the official Qantas website (Qantas.com). Third-party tools are excellent for discovery, but award seat inventory is dynamic and can change quickly, so always confirm with the source before transferring any points.

Here’s how to approach it:

1. Go to Qantas.com: Navigate to the Qantas website and look for the flight search option. Make sure you select the option to toggle the “Rewards” option on to search using Qantas Points
2. Enter Exact Details: Input the exact dates and route that you identified on Seats.aero.
3. Search Tip – Start with 1 Adult: Even if you plan to book for multiple passengers, it’s often best to initially search for just 1 adult. Airlines sometimes release only a single award seat in premium cabins to partners. If you search for two or more seats right away and only one is available, the search might return no results, leading you to believe there’s no availability at all. Searching for one seat first helps you see if any saver-level award space exists.
4. Limited Availability is Normal: Be prepared for limited availability, especially in First Class. Often, only 1 or 2 seats are made available to partners on any given flight. If you need more seats, you might need to be flexible with dates, consider flying separately on different days if your group is willing, or hope for more seats to open closer to departure (though this is risky).
5. Confirm the Flight and Aircraft: When the search results load, carefully check that the Emirates flight you want is indeed listed as an award option and shows the expected Qantas points cost. The search results should also display the aircraft type (e.g., Airbus A380, Boeing 777).
6. Crucial Tip for First Class – A380 for Showers & Bar: If your primary motivation for flying Emirates First Class is to experience the iconic onboard shower spa and the communal bar/lounge area, you must ensure your flight is operated by an Airbus A380. Emirates’ Boeing 777 aircraft, while offering an excellent First Class private suite (including the “Game Changer” on some newer 777s), do not have the shower or the large bar/lounge found on the A380. Always verify the aircraft type if these specific amenities are important to you.

Once you have successfully found and visually confirmed the desired Emirates award seats on the Qantas website for your date(s) and number of passengers (you may need to search again for multiple passengers if your initial 1-adult search was successful), you’re ready for the next stage: transferring your bank points to Qantas and completing the booking.

Step 4: Transferring Points & Finalizing Your Booking – Key Tips

You’ve found promising availability on Seats.aero and, most importantly, you’ve visually confirmed those exact Emirates award seats are available on the Qantas.com website. Now, you’re very close! Before you transfer any valuable bank points, here are some critical final steps and considerations:

A. One Last Check

Award availability can vanish in an instant. Right before you initiate a points transfer, do one final quick search on Qantas.com to ensure the seats are still there.

B. Transferring Your Bank Points to Qantas

This is where your flexible credit card points come into play. (Remember, for my recommendations, check out: [Here are my favorite cards that will earn you Qantas points – Using these links to apply for cards helps support my content at no cost to you! THANK YOU 🫶🏼])

• Transfer in One Go: It’s generally advisable to transfer the entire amount of Qantas points needed for your booking in a single transaction. Doing small “test transfers” can sometimes lead to delays or issues, and you risk the award seats disappearing while you wait for multiple transfers to complete.
• Exact Name Match is Crucial: Ensure the name on your Qantas Frequent Flyer account exactly matches the name on the bank rewards program account from which you are transferring points. Even minor discrepancies can cause transfers to fail or be significantly delayed.

Transfer times from bank programs to Qantas can vary, but partners like American Express Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou Rewards, and Capital One Miles often transfer relatively quickly (sometimes instantly, sometimes within a day or two).

C. Brace for Taxes & Fees (Especially to/from Dubai)

While using Qantas points for Emirates premium cabins can be a great deal points-wise, Qantas is known for passing on significant carrier-imposed surcharges and taxes on these awards.

• To/From Dubai (DXB): For most routes flying into or out of Emirates’ hub in Dubai, expect the taxes and fees to be substantial – often $800 USD or more per person, per direction, for First or Business Class. Unfortunately, these are largely unavoidable for DXB-centric routes booked via Qantas at this time.
• Fifth-Freedom Routes – The Sweet Spot for Lower Fees: There’s a silver lining for some routes! Emirates operates a few “fifth-freedom” routes (flights between two countries outside of the UAE). When booking these specific routes using Qantas points, the taxes and fees can be dramatically lower. For example, on routes like New York (JFK) to Milan (MXP), fees can often be less than $200 USD, making it an even more incredible deal. Always check the fee component carefully for your specific itinerary.

D. Complete Your Booking!

Once your points have landed in your Qantas Frequent Flyer account, navigate back to Qantas.com, re-locate your confirmed award flights, and proceed to ticketing. Congratulations!

The Ultimate Reward: A ~$15,000 Experience on Points!

You’ve successfully navigated the complexities and booked an incredible experience. Whether it’s the private suite in Emirates First Class (perhaps even with an onboard shower on the A380!) or the refined comfort of their Business Class, you’re set to enjoy a journey that often retails for upwards of $15,000 USD for First Class between North America and Dubai, all for a fraction of the cost using points.

Conclusion: Unlocking Emirates First & Business Class with Qantas

Navigating the world of points and miles to book aspirational experiences like Emirates First or Business Class can seem daunting, especially when program rules change. The restriction on Emirates First Class awards through their own Skywards program for non-elite members (as of May 12, 2025) was certainly a significant shift.

However, as this guide has shown, Qantas Frequent Flyer remains a powerful and accessible pathway to these incredible premium cabin experiences. By understanding how to leverage transferable credit card points, effectively use tools like Seats.aero for initial discovery, diligently verify availability on the Qantas website, and being mindful of the associated taxes and fees (especially on routes via Dubai), booking these flights is very achievable.

The key steps – accumulating transferable points (don’t forget to check out my favorite cards that will earn you Qantas points), finding that elusive award space, and correctly navigating the booking process via a partner like Qantas – require some effort and attention to detail. But the reward? The chance to experience one of the world’s most luxurious airline products, like an Emirates First Class suite potentially valued at over $15,000, for a mere fraction of that cost using points.

While the process involves a few more steps than booking directly, the continued access to Emirates First Class through Qantas makes it an invaluable strategy for points and miles enthusiasts today. With a bit of planning and the right tools, your dream Emirates flight is well within reach!