[byaru]

Having flown Emirates several times, I have gathered about 60,000 miles from their Skywards program. Most of the miles were expiring in 1 month, and the Emirates automated notification system warned me of this.

As I had no flight coming soon, I decided to use these miles to grab an iPod from the online "Emirates High Street".

It all started out well. The website gives you a list of items, plus the miles needed per item. Well, cool, I selected an 8GB iPod Nano which after "purchase", would leave me with several thousand miles.

I went to "checkout" and was presented with an option of paying for taxes + shipping (from Dubai to Johannesburg). The two options here were to either pay by credit card or "use the remaining miles" to pay for shipping + taxes.

I clicked "use my remaining miles to pay for shipping & taxes". To my surprise, i still had to pay 16usd for taxes and I thought to myself, "fair enough".

So, all was good (or so I thought). I now received the usual confirmations and tracking numbers. The iPod was shipped to Johannesburg and I could actually track it from their preferred courier (www.aramex.com).

To my absolute surprise, as soon as it was delivered, I got an invoice (from a local delivery company) totaling to ~ 800 South African Rands (about 110USD). This was for "delivery, clearance and documentation charges".

Surely, what kind of a rip-off is this????? A brand new 8GB iPod Nano costs no more than 125USD. I paid 110usd +16usd +60,000 skywards miles for a freaking iPod nano????????????

THIS HAS GOT TO BE THE BIGGEST RIP-OFF... Emirates are clearly camouflaging as giving away "free" items using miles, yet at the end of the day, you will actually have to pay the exact cost of the damn item (and on top of that, you even lose your miles)!

I'm extremely disappointed with Emirates' method of handling this aspect of their loyalty program.