You can fly the luxurious Emirates Airlines to Greece or Italy in 2025 for seriously un-luxurious rates.
I mean it when I say this: Booking Emirates economy flights from New York City to Athens (ATH) or Milan (MXP) for just 35,000 points roundtrip is the single best deal in travel right now.
As airlines and points programs the world over are stumbling over themselves to make their rates higher, websites worse, and travel experience more mediocre, Emirates is…making things better and cheaper? That's right. This year, Emirates actually made these flights cheaper to book! A price reduction…in air travel!
You don't have to connect through Emirates' Dubai (DXB) hub en route to Europe to take advantage of this deal. This cheap points redemption is for Emirates' two specific, kind of wonky nonstop routes:
- New York-Kennedy (JFK) to Milan, Italy (MXP) on the double decker Airbus A380
- Newark-Liberty (EWR) to Athens, Greece (ATH) on the Boeing 777
Even if you're not based in New York City, you can easily book your own connection – called a positioning flight – from your home airport so you can take advantage of these convenient flights. These nonstop routes are two of the best options for any U.S. traveler to get to these destinations, especially because the price is so right.
Just 35,000 Emirates Skywards miles (or American Express, Bilt Capital One, Chase, or Citi points you can transfer to Emirates) and $144 in taxes and fees per person is all you need to make this work!
Want to book it for two? 70,000 points and $280 in taxes and fees and you've got a perfect romantic getaway to Greece or Italy, too. Best of all: This is one of the easiest points and miles redemptions to book. I'll walk you through every step below.
How to Book It: Step-by-Step
Step 1: Sign-up for Emirates Skywards & Earn the Points
For U.S. travelers, an Emirates Skywards account is not a given like our United, American, and Delta accounts. So the very first thing you're going to do, at least a day before you book your flights, is sign up for one of these free accounts. Emirates makes it easy.
Once you have an account, you're going to need to want to make sure you have the points to fill it up. Most importantly: You don't have to fly Emirates to earn Emirates points. You just need points that transfer into Emirates Skywards miles. That's the beauty of credit card transfer partners.
Here's what you can transfer to Emirates: (All points transfer 1-to-1, meaning 1 credit card point=1 Emirates mile)
- American Express Membership Rewards
- Bilt Rewards
- Capital One miles
- Chase Ultimate Rewards
- Citi ThankYou Points
You might already have Emirates Skywards miles waiting in your credit card points account to book these flights! If not, you can cover the cost of a roundtrip flight (or two) with the sign-up bonus for credit cards like the *amex gold*, the *venture x*, the *chase sapphire preferred*, or the Citi Strata Premier℠ Card.
All of these cards will put 60,000 points or more into your account when you hit the spending requirement – and most of them will put the 70,000 or more you need to book two of these roundtrip flights!
But don't transfer those points just yet! First, you need to find the availability of the flights you want.
Step 2: Find Award Availability
Before you transfer points, you have to make sure the flights you want are available to book with points. So let's do that. You can find availability without any points actually in your account, so login to your Skywards account and let's do some searching.
Once you're logged into your Emirates account on the Emirates website, head to the “Book Flights” section (or click this link) and enter either New York-Kennedy (JFK) or Newark-Liberty (EWR) into the departure city box and Milan (MXP) or Athens (ATH) into the destination box and select the “Classic rewards” box in the top left. For this example, I'm going to plan an October 2025 honeymoon for two in Italy.
It will likely take a little bit of trial and error to find what is called “Saver” award space. The “Saver” rate is that 35,000 roundtrip flight, while the regular economy rate is 60,000 roundtrip. When we find Saver award space like this, we always send it to our Thrifty Traveler Premium subscribers, too. In fact, we just an award alert for these flights a few weeks ago that looked like this.
Our flight deal alerts also include detailed booking instructions for all of our deals and give our members a full rundown of what points you can use and at what price. If you don't have time to search for your own flight deals, we will happily do it for you!
If you're searching on your own, though, you'll have to spend some time poking around at a few dates to find that 35,000 roundtrip rate that will appear like this.
As you can see, you'll get a little more with the Flex Plus ticket, including free changes, refunds, and two free checked bags. But with the Saver rate, you can still get a free checked bag and make changes to your flight for a low $25 fee.
When you select your “Saver” fares on the dates you want, you'll get to a checkout page that looks like this. The full price will be confirmed at the bottom. Remember, that's the rate for two passengers!
Once you select your fares and get to the checkout page, you'll get a warning that don't have enough Skywards miles for the transaction. Now, let's take care of that.
Step 3: Transfer Your Points
Once you have the available dates confirmed, it's time to put some points in your Skywards account so you can book.
Again, you can transfer points from most of the major banks – Amex, Capital One, Chase, Citi, and even Bilt Rewards – to Emirates at a 1:1 ratio. You'll need to have your Skywards account number handy to do so.
Most transfers are instant, but some may take up to 24 hours for the points to appear in your Skywards account.
Read more: Save Points When Booking Flights: Transfer Them to an Airline Partner
Step 4: Book the Flights!
Once the points arrive in your Skywards account, pull up the same flights you already found on the Emirates website and book them!
It's as easy as that if you want to book roundtrip flights. But one of the coolest parts about this deal is that you can also book these flights one-way for half the price (and you might want to) – just 17,500 miles and about $53!
Finally, if you're not based in New York City, now's the time you'll want to book your positioning flights. You'll want to give yourself a good, long connection in NYC so you don't risk missing your Emirates flight (same goes for the way back home), so I'd even consider giving yourself an overnight layover in NYC if possible.
Luckily, these flights depart JFK and EWR very late at night, so you'll likely have time to position into NYC the day of.
Optional Step 5: Keep an Eye Out for Upgrades
Here's one of the coolest parts of booking with Emirates. When you do, you suddenly get access to Emirates' world-famous business and first-class cabins, too!
Emirates allows passengers to upgrade their seats with points after check-in. Remember that roundtrip fare example above? It showed you the way you can upgrade your seat within 24 hours of flying if you have Emirates miles in your account.
That means, if there are business class seats available, and you have 82,000 miles in your account (each), you can put yourself into a lie-flat seat for the overnight journey across the Atlantic, or on the return flight to the U.S.
If this is interesting to you and you're willing to take a risk, put those 82,000 miles into your account and upgrade yourself on the way to Greece or Italy if you can! If it doesn't work, you'll have another chance to do it on the way back. Otherwise, you'll have 82,000 miles in your account that you can use to book these flights all over again next year!
Note: Emirates only allows you to upgrade your ticket by one class of service, assuming space is available in that cabin – whether you book with cash or miles. So if you booked an economy ticket, you'll only be able to upgrade to a business class seat, not all the way into first class.
Read more: How to Score an Emirates Upgrade with Miles
Biz & First Class, Too: Or Mix & Match
We can't talk about Emirates without looking at their fancy business and first class cabins, too. That 35,000-point roundtrip rate is one of the best deals in travel, but if you have more points you can transfer into Emirates Skywards, consider taking one of Emirates' lie-flat options, too.
Just a few weeks ago, we found availability to book Emirates Business Class on some of these routes, too. This fare above, from Newark (EWR) to Athens (ATH) would make for a dreamy start to any Grecian vacation in 2025, for example. Instead of the paltry 17,500 points for economy, you'll pay a lot more with 87,000 points in business class. But for Emirates Business Class, we think that's worth it.
This fare was part of another Thrifty Traveler Premium flight deal alert we sent our members, showing them exactly what dates were available and how to book them.
(By the way, that is what you think it is: An onboard bar on Emirates' double-decker A380 airplane on the route to Milan!)
If you have the points, it's worth checking to see if business class is available. Plus, you can mix and match economy flights for 17,500 points with one-way in business class for 87,000 points for a grand total of 104,500 points roundtrip per person! That's also an incredible deal.
But finally, there is a single best way to take these flights, and that's ahead of the business class cabin in the illustrious Emirates First Class.
Booking Emirates First Class with points is extremely hard, but we found a way to do it a few months ago, leading us to issue a special “Unicorn Alert” to our members, including a text message notification to alert people to the extra-special award space.
The easier way to book Emirates First Class is by booking business class and then upgrading. Just like when we looked at upgrading from economy to business, you can do the same from business to first class if there are seats available. Read our full guide to doing exactly this!
Bottom Line
You can fly to Italy or Greece for just 35,000 points roundtrip on one of the fanciest airlines in the world in 2025, and it might just be the best deal in all of air travel.
When you book using Emirates Skywards miles, you can fly nonstop from New York (JFK) to Milan (MXP) or from Newark (EWR) to Athens (ATH) for 17,500 miles each way, or 35,000 miles roundtrip.
Do these specific deals pop up in the shoulder seasons too (May-June, Sept-Oct) or only non peak winter and winterish months?
Thanks for the great heads up on this. Very unfamiliar with Emirates. I think I’ll be getting to know them better now. lol