Points Transfers to Emirates Paused
There have been a lot of things going on with Emirates as of late with their transfer partners. Not to mention they are now limiting first class award redemptions to only their elite members.
A few weeks ago we heard that Citi was devaluing their transfers to Emirates. Previously it was a 1:1 transfer, then as of July 27th, 2025 it would decrease to 5:4. Then we saw Amex, Chase, and now Bilt pausing their transfers to Emirates. These are the published downtimes:
American Express starting May 28th with no end date
Chase starting May 29th through June 30th
Bilt starting May 27th through June 19th
Citi and Capital One have not announced any downtime for their transfers to Emirates but I would not be surprised at all if their ability to transfer to Emirates stops. Bilt only gave a one day notice that transfers would be pausing so Citi and Capital One might do something similar or even not give us notice.
Emirates A380
Reason for Emirates Transfers Pausing
At first many thought something horrible was about to take place with Citi devaluing their transfer ratio and American Express pausing transfers but it appears to be something innocent. I got a tip from someone connected to one of the major banks a few weeks ago saying it was due to internal systems at Emirates being upgraded and now it appears that she was correct! Once their internal systems are upgraded, it will take each of the banks some time to restore that connection to transfer points. Maybe Citi and Capital One have already built out the new connection or maybe they’re just not yet announcing the outage.
Should I Speculatively Transfer Points?
People have reached out to ask about speculatively transferring points to Emirates in the event they never come back. At first I suggested it was too soon to tell what was going on and to wait. Other clients had upcoming business class trips I helped them book and wanted to upgrade to first class with miles. One client in particular is flying to Africa on Emirates next week during the outage so they won’t be able to transfer points at check in like I normally suggest. On their particular flight there are 7 of the 14 first class seats still open so it probably is a safe bet to transfer the needed points over to Emirates in advance of their flight. However, there’s still a risk as upgrades are never a sure thing.
For everyone else, I would just wait until this sorts itself out and you can freely transfer points to Emirates!
Wrapping Up
American Express, Chase and Bilt are all pausing their points transfers to Emirates for about a month while Emirates updates their internal systems. We may see Citi and Capital One follow suit but have not heard anything from either of them.
