Emirates Is Back With UK Credit Cards - Free Silver Status and Up to 30,000 Bonus Miles

Emirates has finally put a UK credit card back on the table. Two new Emirates Skywards credit cards are now live on Emirates' UK site, issued by Jaja Finance, with up to 30,000 bonus Skywards Miles and - on the top card - free Skywards Silver status for a year.

It's been a long time coming. Emirates last had a UK co-brand card with MBNA, which launched back in 2013 and has long since gone. Since then, the main way for UK collectors to earn Skywards Miles from everyday spending has been converting Amex Membership Rewards - at a rate that got a lot worse this year. So is a dedicated Emirates card worth a slot in your wallet? Let's dig in.

WHAT // Emirates now offers two Skywards-branded credit cards to UK residents aged 18+. The lender is Jaja Finance Ltd - Emirates acts as a credit broker. Both cards earn Skywards Miles on every pound, both earn Tier Miles towards status, and both come with a limited-time welcome bonus for applications made by 30 November 2026.

WHY IT MATTERS // This is the first time in years you can earn Skywards Miles directly at 1 mile per £1 on UK spending. For comparison, Amex Membership Rewards now converts to Skywards at 2:1, so a card earning 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 works out at just 0.5 Skywards Miles per £1. The new cards double that - before you even count the bonus or the status perks.

"Emirates spend" means bookings on emirates.com, through the Emirates Contact Centre or at Emirates Travel Stores - so booking Emirates flights through an online travel agent will only earn the standard rate. No miles are earned on cash advances, balance transfers, money transfers, instalment payments or fees.

Premium card - Silver from day one. You get Emirates Skywards Silver for 12 months from the date your account opens (Emirates says to allow up to eight weeks for it to show). To keep Silver from year two, you need to spend £5,000 a year in non-sterling currency on the card.

Premium card - the Gold fast track. This is the most interesting bit. Spend at least £5,000 in non-sterling currency and £3,500 on Emirates flights (booked via emirates.com, Emirates Sales Offices or the Contact Centre) within your first 12 months, and Emirates gives you Gold for a year. To keep Gold, you need £5,000 of non-sterling spend and £5,000 on Emirates within 12 months. That's status earned through spending rather than flying - the same way I hold Hilton Gold through my Amex Platinum Business card.

Rewards card - two lounge visits a year. The cheaper card gives you two complimentary visits a year to Emirates' own lounges at London Heathrow, London Gatwick, London Stansted, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow. The passes last for one year from your card joining date, and they only work when you're flying Emirates. If you're flying from Heathrow, it's worth checking the live security queue times so you get more time in the lounge, and you can see what each lounge offers on Airport Lounge List.

Tier Miles on both cards. You earn 1 Tier Mile for every 4 Skywards Miles, capped at 15,000 Tier Miles per card year. Welcome bonus and promotional miles don't count. To hit that cap, you'd need to earn 60,000 Skywards Miles from spending in a year - roughly £60,000 of everyday sterling spend - so for most people the Tier Miles are a nice top-up rather than a route to status on their own.

The APR is eye-watering. The Premium card's representative APR is 107.2% and the Rewards card's is 59.7%, both variable. That's mostly the annual fee being counted on a small assumed credit limit - the purchase rate on both is 29.9%. Either way, these are cards to clear in full every month. If you carry a balance, the interest wipes out any value from the miles.

I couldn't confirm the non-sterling fee. Both the Silver retention rule and the Gold fast track need £5,000 of foreign currency spend, and the Premium card pays 1.5 miles per £1 abroad. But Emirates' page doesn't list a foreign transaction fee, and I couldn't find one in the public card details. If the card charges a typical fee of around 3%, that £5,000 of foreign spend would cost you roughly £150 on top of the £250 annual fee. Check the summary box before you apply - and if there is a fee, consider pairing it with a Curve card for the rest of your spending abroad.

Emirates reward flights carry big surcharges. Emirates adds carrier charges to most reward tickets from the UK, so a "free" flight can still cost hundreds of pounds in cash. Use our Emirates miles calculator to see what a route costs in miles, and search for seats on Award Travel Finder or Seats.aero before you commit.

Don't burn miles on Cash+Miles. Both cards come with a Cash+Miles offer until 31 March 2027, where 2,000 miles knocks AED 70 off an Emirates flight. That's only around £14-15 at current exchange rates - well under 1p per mile. Save your miles for upgrades or premium cabin seats instead.

The bonus has rules. The welcome bonus only applies if you haven't held an Emirates credit card in the past 24 months, and Emirates says to allow 4-6 weeks for the miles to land. The offer can also be withdrawn at any time, so don't leave it until the last week of November.

I'll be honest - I didn't expect Emirates to come back to the UK card market, and I like what it has done here. Earning 1 Skywards Mile per £1 is double what Amex Membership Rewards now gives you, and the Gold fast track is a genuinely clever way to reward people who spend abroad rather than just people who fly constantly.

But I'd keep this in perspective. My own everyday earners are still my Barclaycard Avios Plus and my Amex Business cards, because Avios are much easier to use well from the UK - with lower surcharges on lots of partner airlines and BA's reward flight pricing being easy to work out. If you want flexibility, a Membership Rewards card from American Express still lets you move points to Skywards, Avios and plenty of others - see the current Amex offers here.

The question I'd ask yourself is simple: will you actually fly Emirates in the next 12 months? If the answer is yes, the welcome bonus alone covers a good chunk of an upgrade or a reward seat to Dubai. If it's "maybe", you're paying an annual fee to collect miles you might struggle to use. And if you're torn between the Gulf carriers, our Qatar vs Emirates vs Etihad comparison is worth a read first.

For most UK collectors, the £120 Rewards card is the one to look at. 20,000 bonus miles plus two Emirates lounge visits is solid value for a one-year punt, as long as you have an Emirates trip planned. The £250 Premium card only really makes sense if you'll hit the Gold fast track - £5,000 of foreign spend and £3,500 on Emirates flights in year one - and once you know what the card charges on non-sterling spend.

If you don't fly Emirates, skip both and stick with a flexible or Avios-earning card - our best Avios credit cards guide is the place to start. I'll update this piece once the full card terms are public. Applied already? Let me know how you got on over on Instagram.

That's all from me for now. Any questions, just hit reply - I read every email.

Safe travels,
Jack