Emirates Skywards miles: Book showers at 30,000 feet and unlimited caviar

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The Emirates Skywards loyalty program may not be at the top of your mind for earning and redeeming frequent flyer miles. But it can be incredibly valuable for anyone dreaming of a bucket-list airline experience.

Even if you're not looking to fly on the Dubai-based airline, Emirates Skywards can be useful for booking certain North American flights thanks to partnerships with airlines like United and Air Canada. Plus, Skywards miles are easy to get as you can transfer points from all of the major travel credit card rewards programs.

CNBC Select has the details on why Emirates Skywards should be on your radar, how the program works and the best ways to earn and use Skywards miles.

What makes Emirates Skywards so useful is that the miles are exceptionally easy to earn. All major transferrable travel credit card reward programs partner with Emirates. Whether you earn Chase Ultimate Rewards® points with a card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card (see rates and fees), American Express Membership Rewards points with a card like the American Express® Gold Card or Capital One miles with the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card, you'll be able to convert your rewards into Skywards miles.

The best rewards credit cards also tend to have lucrative welcome bonuses, making it easy to quickly amass a stockpile of points or miles. For example, the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card offers new cardholders 75,000 bonus points after you spend $5,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening. Meanwhile, the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card, another top travel card for beginners, earn a one-time bonus of 75,000 miles once you spend $4,000 on purchases within 3 months from account opening, equal to $750 in travel.

On the redemption side, members have lots of options as well. Emirates has over a dozen partner airlines that you can redeem miles with, including Air Canada, Japan Airlines, Qantas, United and more. Plus, Emirates operates several "fifth freedom" flights, which is when an airline flies to or from a destination other than the carrier's home country. For example, Emirates offers service to Milan and Athens from the New York City area, so it's possible to fly on the airline even if you don't have a trip to the Middle East on your horizon.

The Skywards program is also your best bet for booking Emirates first class tickets. Emirates offers one of the best first-class products in the world with private seats, top-notch champagne, bottomless caviar, and depending on the aircraft, onboard showers and a bar. These tickets easily cost five figures but can be booked with Skywards miles for a fraction of that cost, making this bucket-list experience much more attainable.

There are a handful of ways to earn Emirates Skywards Miles, including flying with Emirates or its airline partners and booking hotels, flights or rental cars through Emirates. Emirates also has a shopping portal, the Emirates Skywards Miles mall, you can click through the offers to earn Skywards Miles at many of the most popular online stores.

You can also purchase miles for your account and gift or transfer miles to someone else. Before you pay to transfer miles to someone else's Emirates account, first look into the Emirates family pooling program, where up to seven family members can earn and redeem Skywards Miles from a single account.

You can also earn Skywards Miles with credit cards. Emirates has two co-branded cards for U.S.-based consumers which are issued by Barclays, the Emirates Skywards Premium World Elite Mastercard® ($499 annual fee) and the Emirates Skywards Rewards World Elite Mastercard® ($99 annual fee). Both cards earn 3X miles on Emirates purchases, 2X miles on travel and one mile per dollar on all other purchases.

However, other travel credit cards can earn rewards that you can convert to Emirates miles while providing a range of other useful benefits and redemption options at a lower cost. This is because points and miles from the best credit card rewards programs transfer to Emirates Skywards, including the following:

• Chase Ultimate Rewards
• American Express Membership Rewards
• Bilt Rewards
• Capital One miles
• Citi ThankYou points

Travel credit cards associated with these rewards programs earn points and miles you can transfer to Emirates at a 1:1 ratio. But you can also transfer those same rewards to other airlines. This flexibility is what makes earning Chase Ultimate Rewards points or Amex Membership Rewards points more valuable than directly earning Emirates Skywards Miles. If Emirates doesn't have a reward flight available on the dates you want to travel, you won't have many options to get value from your rewards. But you can move transferrable rewards to many different airline loyalty programs or use them in other valuable ways.

You can use Emirates Skywards miles to book award flights with Emirates and partner airlines, pay for upgrades or use miles and cash to purchase flights. You can also redeem miles on hotels or vacation packages, special event tickets through Skywards Exclusives and use them for shopping or donate them through The Emirates Airline Foundation.

Unfortunately, there isn't an award chart for Emirates flights, but you can price out flights using Emirates' miles calculator. With the miles calculator, you can enter your itinerary and elite status level to see how many miles you'd earn (with paid flights), how many miles it costs or how many miles it would take to upgrade your flight.

Emirates reward flights aren't always the cheapest option and can sometimes come with hefty fuel surcharges, but the miles are still useful. This is because using Skywards miles is one of the best ways to book Emirates first-class. It's one of the best first-class cabins in the world and features complimentary in-flight showers (on certain routes), caviar and Dom Pérignon. For 102,000 Skywards miles and about $100 in taxes and fees, you can book a one-way first-class flight from New York to Athens or Milan. This is a stellar use of your miles for a flight that can cost over $10,000. Those same flights would set you back 87,000 miles one-way in business class or 38,750 miles in economy.

Emirates is not part of an airline alliance, but has partnerships with more than a dozen airlines. You can earn and redeem Skywards miles with these airlines:

• flydubai
• Air Canada
• Air Mauritius
• Bangkok Airways
• Copa Airlines
• easyJet
• GOL
• Japan Airlines
• Jetstar
• Korean Air
• Malaysia Airlines
• Qantas
• South African Airlines
• TAP Air Portugal
• United Airlines

Some sweet spots in the Emirates Skywards program in terms of partner redemptions include:

• 8,000 miles for one-way economy class flights under 250 miles on GOL
• 88,000 miles one-way from Los Angeles or Seattle to Seoul in business class with Korean Air
• 64,000 miles one-way in business class from multiple U.S. cities to Lisbon on TAP Air Portugal
• 76,000 miles one-way in business class from Seattle to Tokyo on Japan Airlines

Emirates Skywards elite status is broken down into four tiers, and with each tier, you receive better benefits. You qualify for elite status by earning a certain number of tier miles or taking a certain number of eligible flights.

Here's what you need to qualify for each status tier and some of the benefits you'll receive at each level:

Blue

• Entry-level membership tier with no Tier Miles requirement
• Waitlist priority
• Ability to earn and redeem Skywards Miles with Emirates and partners
• Free Wi-Fi in first class

Silver

• Earn 25,000 Tier Miles or take 25 qualifying flights
• All Blue-level benefits
• 30% miles bonus when flying with Emirates
• Free seat selection
• Priority check-in and boarding
• Excess baggage weight allowance
• Free access to the business-class airport lounge in Dubai
• Free Wi-Fi in first or business class

Gold

• Earn 50,000 Tier Miles or take 50 qualifying flights
• All Silver-level benefits
• 75% miles bonus when flying with Emirates
• Guaranteed economy seats on full flights
• Priority contact center service
• Extra checked baggage
• Free access to select airport lounges worldwide
• Priority baggage delivery

Platinum

• Earn 150,000 Tier Miles and have at least one qualifying flight in first or business class
• All Gold-level benefits
• 100% miles bonus when flying with Emirates
• Guaranteed business-class seats on full flights
• Miles don't expire
• Tier Miles rollover
• Complimentary upgrades and discounted upgrades
• Ability to book the "last seat" with miles
• Gift Gold status to one person
• Free access to the Emirates first-class lounge in Dubai
• Free Wi-Fi in any cabin class

Earning Emirates elite status

Earning tier miles to qualify for Emirates elite status works a little differently than earning regular Skywards award miles. You earn tier miles and Skywards miles at the same rate for flights with Emirates, flydubai and codeshare flights you book through Emirates. So every Skywards mile you earn for flying with Emirates also earns a tier mile, but the Skywards miles you earn from using the Emirates shopping portal won't help you qualify for elite status.

You can also earn tier miles by spending on an Emirates co-branded credit card. Every four Skyward miles you earn by spending on your Emirates card earns one tier mile. However, transferring rewards to Emirates from one of its many credit card program partners will not earn tier miles.

The Emirates cards also offer elite status for one year and a path to earning status through credit card spending. You'll get a year of Silver status with the Emirates Skywards Rewards World Elite Mastercard® and can continue to enjoy Silver status by spending $20,000 on the card each year. The Emirates Skywards Premium World Elite Mastercard® comes with a year of Gold status and you can continue to qualify for Gold status by spending $40,000 on the card each year.

Alternatively, you can achieve Gold or Silver status by taking the required number of flights with Emirates or flydubai.

Emirates Skywards+ subscription

Emirates has a paid subscription service that mimics elite status benefits. With a Skywards+ subscription, you'll get perks such as discounted award flights and upgrades and bonus miles when you book online.

There are three tiers of Skywards+ subscriptions:

Classic ($399 a year)

• 20% more miles when you book online via emirates.com
• 20% discount on one Classic Reward flight per year
• Two Emirates business class lounge passes
• An additional 5kg baggage allowance
• Discounted cash and miles rate
• 5% discount on Emirates vacation packages

Advanced ($699 a year)

• All of the Classic benefits
• 20% discount on flight upgrades
• Five Emirates business class lounge passes, instead of two
• An additional 10kg baggage allowance, instead of 5kg
• One additional checked bag

Premium ($999 a year)

• All of the Advanced benefits
• 20% bonus Tier Miles
• 10 Emirates business class lounge passes, instead of five

For most people, a Skywards+ subscription simply isn't worth it, but some of the benefits have value in niche scenarios. The 20% reward flight discount applies to all travelers on the same booking. If you're booking a couple of business- or first-class flights the discount could be significant enough to justify the cost.

The Emirates Skywards program can get you to exotic destinations in incredible style for a fraction of what you'd pay with cash. However, there are also ways to redeem Skywards miles for flights closer to home. The best part is that Skywards miles are easy to accumulate because Emirates partners with all of the most popular travel credit card reward programs.

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