First Class Emirates

Taking a shower at 40,000 feet has been on the bucket list for a few years. Currently, there are two planes on which one can shower: Etihad’s A380 and Emirates’ A380. Since the shower is not available to those in Business Class and Economy, and since a one-way First Class ticket on Emirates from LAX-DXB (Dubai) was priced at $49,000, it was imperative that we get scrappy.

So we saved our points until we had enough (155,000 apiece) for the flight (plus $841.80 apiece) for taxes and fees.

There has been so much written about Emirates First Class, including the ads starring Jennifer Anniston and the Casey Neistat video that has over 60 million clicks, so I’ll keep from covering what has already been covered. (However, if you haven’t seen the commercials or the Casey video, see below.)

Here’s one of the Emirates advertisements:

Here’s the Casey Neistat video that has, thus far, fetched over 62 million views:

(And if you’re old school and wish to read about it, this is the best write-up I’ve found. It’s by Ben Schlappig. Just click here.)

So what was our verdict? Sometimes we project, we aggrandize, we want something to be better than it can possibly be. We booked our flights from LAX-DXB (Dubai) 350 days in advance. We watched videos. We read blogs. And I often went to sleep, dreaming about what it might be like to shower on a plane. (I geek out on this stuff, and as you likely know, rarely can an experience match such high expectations.)

With Emirates First Class, though, I’m pleased to declare: It was everything we wanted it to be.

Michelle didn’t just enjoy one order of caviar. She had two. We had drinks at the onboard bar. We watched an entire season of Ballers. We slept. We swam in pajamas, slayed Dom Pérignon, and right when the 15.5 hour flight was about to end, we took showers (concurrently—there are two showers on board). Never have we felt more fresh when deplaning!

So what’s the simplest way to fly Emirates First Class? Aside from paying between $25,000 and $50,000 for a one-way ticket from Los Angeles to Dubai, the simplest way is probably this:

• Accumulate 155,000 AMEX Membership Rewards points
• Transfer them to Emirates Skywards
• Pay $841.80 in taxes and fees

There are, admittedly, more creative ways to fly Emirates First Class in order to avoid the hefty fees, and this can be done by going through Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan, Korean Air Skypass, JAL Mileage Bank, Malaysia Airlines Enrich, and Qantas Frequent Flyer. We, however, in examining the amount of time we wished to allocate to the process, found that simply transferring our points to Emirates Skywards (and paying the fees) was most efficient.

As a side note, we could not claim to have truly experienced the Emirates First Class product without enjoying a few hours in their flagship lounge at Dubai International Airport. So we transferred additional points to secure two First Class tickets from Dubai to Istanbul, this time aboard their 777-300. It, too, was brilliant. And should you have an opportunity to experience the Emirates First Class Lounge, schedule your complimentary massage. And then make sure to hit up the sushi bar. They have an actual sushi chef who will make your sushi, sashimi, or roll—it’s delicious!

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