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Emirates Skywards is using Ramadan to supercharge its loyalty ecosystem, rolling out prize draws of one hundred thousand miles, stacked earning bonuses and Visa-linked incentives that signal how airline rewards schemes are evolving in a more competitive global travel market.
Ramadan Campaign Puts Six-Figure Mile Prizes in the Spotlight
Emirates Skywards has opened the holy month of Ramadan with a headline-grabbing proposition for its UAE-based members: the chance to win one hundred thousand Skywards Miles through a series of partner-driven prize draws. The promotion, highlighted across the airline’s special offers pages, invites members to shop in store and online with Skywards Everyday partners and Skywards Miles Mall brands to earn bonus miles and automatic entries into raffles for 100,000-mile windfalls.
The campaign builds on Emirates’ recent pattern of large-scale mileage giveaways. In a February 2025 announcement, the airline detailed a Ramadan push offering its more than 2.3 million UAE members a share of four million Skywards Miles, with draws structured around 100,000-mile prizes linked to everyday spending at supermarkets, malls and lifestyle retailers. That blueprint appears again this year, with curated offers designed to fold daily Ramadan and Eid preparations directly into the loyalty-earning journey.
For Skywards members, the appeal is straightforward: a single 100,000-mile haul can translate into premium-cabin redemptions on long-haul routes, multi-stop itineraries in economy or upgrades that significantly enhance the travel experience. For Emirates, the six-figure headline number serves as a powerful marketing hook, encouraging frequent, moderate-value spending with partners rather than relying solely on big-ticket flight purchases.
Everyday Spending Becomes a Core Loyalty Engine
The centre of gravity for the Ramadan offer sits squarely on Skywards Everyday and Skywards Miles Mall, two platforms that have quickly become pillars of Emirates’ loyalty strategy. Instead of limiting members to earning miles when they fly, the airline is positioning everyday categories such as groceries, fashion, homewares and dining as the primary way to accumulate rewards, particularly during a period when households are traditionally more active in retail and gifting.
Under the current Ramadan promotions, members who spend with participating brands accrue enhanced mileage rates while gaining entries into multiple draws for 100,000 miles. In earlier iterations, the airline used similar mechanics at Union Coop supermarkets and Gate Avenue at Dubai International Financial Centre, combining 25 percent bonus miles with raffle entries for high-value Skywards payouts. The model ties loyalty to routine domestic expenditure while preserving aspirational travel redemptions as the ultimate reward.
This shift reflects a broader trend in global travel loyalty programs, where airlines increasingly seek to capture a greater share of members’ monthly wallets by embedding rewards into everyday financial behavior. By making it possible to earn substantial mileage balances without boarding a flight, Emirates is both deepening engagement with its base and insulating the Skywards ecosystem from cyclical swings in air travel demand.
Visa Partnerships Supercharge Ramadan Miles Earning
A key enabler of the Ramadan push is Emirates’ expanding collaboration with Visa. The carrier has rolled out a suite of Visa-linked offers that complement the seasonal campaign, including four times miles on the first transaction made with a newly saved Visa card in the Skywards Everyday app, a 2,000-mile bonus on the first online purchase via Skywards Miles Mall paid with Visa, and sizeable mileage incentives on first-time bookings through Emirates Skywards Hotels.
These offers, many of which run through the first quarter of 2026, effectively turn Visa cards into accelerators for Skywards balances. During Ramadan, when spending on food, home goods and gifts typically rises, the combination of multiplier bonuses and prize-draw entries encourages members to consolidate their card usage within the Emirates–Visa partnership framework. For the airline, that translates into richer transactional data, stronger co-brand propositions and additional revenue streams from financial partners.
The integration also mirrors a broader industry shift in which payment networks and airlines are becoming tightly interwoven in their loyalty strategies. By placing Visa at the heart of its everyday earning pathways, Emirates positions Skywards not just as a frequent-flyer scheme but as a cross-category rewards hub linked directly to how members pay for almost everything they buy.
From Ramadan Promotion to Year-Round Loyalty Ecosystem
Although the 100,000-mile Ramadan draws are time-limited, they sit within a much larger transformation of Emirates Skywards into a year-round lifestyle platform. Beyond seasonal campaigns, Skywards now connects more than 34 million members worldwide to an expanding web of hotels, car hire providers, retailers, financial institutions and entertainment partners, all of which feed miles back into the program.
Members can redeem those miles for a broad spectrum of rewards, from Emirates and flydubai tickets and upgrades to partner airline flights, hotel stays, gift cards and access to sporting or cultural events. The structure gives Skywards a flexibility that has become increasingly important as travelers look for more ways to use their points without being constrained by flight availability or specific routes.
The Ramadan initiative effectively serves as an on-ramp into this ecosystem, particularly for newer members who may sign up to participate in the seasonal promotion. Once registered, they are exposed to a layered benefits structure that ranges from tier-based perks on Emirates flights to non-air redemptions with local and international partners. In doing so, Emirates is using a culturally significant moment to convert occasional customers into year-round loyalty participants.
High-Value Giveaways Signal Intensifying Loyalty Competition
The prominence of 100,000-mile prizes during Ramadan is not an isolated move but part of a larger escalation in Emirates’ loyalty incentives. In late 2025, the airline marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of Skywards with a massive giveaway of 25 million miles, including a raffle with tiered prizes of 100,000, 250,000 and one million miles. That campaign sat alongside other anniversary offers such as a 50 percent mileage bonus on Emirates and flydubai flights and enhanced earning on partner transactions.
Against that backdrop, Ramadan’s one hundred thousand–mile rewards function as both a continuation and localization of a more aggressive loyalty stance. The focus on the UAE market, where Skywards has a particularly high penetration, allows Emirates to sharpen its messaging around community, generosity and shared celebration while still aligning with its global strategy of scaling engagement and mileage issuance.
The stakes are high. With rival airlines upgrading their own programs and credit card issuers offering increasingly generous travel rewards, Emirates’ decision to headline six-figure mileage prizes reflects the intensifying competition for affluent, frequent travelers. High-visibility campaigns like the Ramadan draws are as much about brand signaling as they are about direct member benefits.
How Ramadan Rewards Reflect Shifting Member Expectations
The structure of the Ramadan promotion offers a window into changing consumer expectations around loyalty. Members are no longer satisfied with narrowly defined frequent-flyer perks; instead, they expect rewards that mirror their broader lifestyles, align with their cultural calendars and deliver tangible value quickly. By linking 100,000-mile prizes to Ramadan and Eid shopping, Emirates is tapping into those expectations and framing Skywards as a program that recognizes members’ daily realities.
There is also a strong behavioral component. Raffle-based incentives encourage repeat microtransactions as members seek to maximize their chances of landing a six-figure mileage windfall. Combined with enhanced earn rates, this creates a feedback loop in which members start to see every qualifying purchase as a potential step toward their next long-haul redemption, rather than as an isolated expense.
At the same time, Emirates is careful to retain the aspirational halo that has long surrounded frequent-flyer programs. The communication around the 100,000-mile prizes emphasizes premium travel possibilities and special experiences that might otherwise feel out of reach. In doing so, the airline balances the practical and the aspirational, a mix that is increasingly vital in sustaining loyalty in a cost-conscious era.
Implications for the Future of Airline Loyalty Programs
The scale and design of Emirates Skywards’ Ramadan promotion highlight several emerging trends likely to influence airline loyalty over the next few years. First, the boundary between travel and non-travel spending will continue to blur, with programs using grocery runs, fashion shopping and digital subscriptions as key earning levers. Emirates’ focus on Skywards Everyday and Miles Mall during Ramadan shows how powerful those levers can be when wrapped in a compelling cultural narrative.
Second, financial partners are set to play an even more central role. The deep integration with Visa, from bonus miles on first-time transactions to sustained promotional windows stretching beyond Ramadan, signals a future in which card-linked offers and co-branded products define how quickly members can climb toward once-distant mileage milestones like 100,000 miles.
Third, campaigns built around limited-time, high-value prizes are likely to proliferate as airlines fight for attention in an increasingly crowded loyalty landscape. The one hundred thousand–mile giveaways seen during Ramadan, and the larger 25 million–mile anniversary raffle before them, illustrate how carriers can use big numbers to stand out, even as they fine-tune the underlying economics of mileage issuance and redemption.
For travelers, those shifts mean more opportunities to collect meaningful mileage balances through day-to-day activities, but also a more complex decision matrix when choosing which loyalty ecosystem to prioritize. For Emirates, the Ramadan offers show that the airline intends to compete at the top end of that market by combining cultural relevance, financial partnerships and headline-grabbing rewards.
Ramadan Promotions Reinforce Skywards’ Position in the Gulf
Beyond the global implications, the 100,000-mile Ramadan promotions underline Skywards’ strategic importance in the Gulf region, where Emirates faces both strong local loyalty schemes and a highly mobile, rewards-savvy population. By tailoring offers to Ramadan and tying them to UAE-based merchants and malls, the airline reinforces its role as a key facilitator of regional travel and lifestyle aspirations.
The focus on members living in the United Arab Emirates, highlighted in past Ramadan announcements, suggests that Emirates sees the domestic market as a testing ground for loyalty innovation. Success here can inform campaigns in other Muslim-majority markets and among diaspora communities where Ramadan engagement is strong, providing a template for culturally attuned promotions anchored in substantial rewards.
As the latest campaign unfolds, with one hundred thousand–mile prizes and bonus earning opportunities at its core, Emirates Skywards is signaling that the future of airline loyalty will be defined as much by everyday moments and cultural seasons as by airport lounges and long-haul cabins. For members willing to align their spending with the program’s growing partner network, Ramadan now offers not only spiritual reflection and family gatherings but also a powerful springboard toward their next major journey.