Barclays · Mastercard

Emirates Skywards Rewards World Elite Mastercard

$99 annual fee · 1x on everything else · no foreign transaction fees

Earn rates · how we got this

CategoryRateCap
Travel 2x uncapped
Everything else 1x uncapped
Flights
at Emirates only — anywhere else in this category the card earns its base rate, so it is excluded from every ranking on this site
3x uncapped

See how it ranks: best travel cards.

Non-cash perks

  • Emirates Skywards Silver tier membership status for the first year (retained from year two by spending $20,000/year)
  • 1 Tier Mile for every 4 Skywards Miles earned (capped at 15,000 Tier Miles per card-cycle year)
  • 25% discount on Buy Miles/Gift Miles purchases
  • No foreign transaction fees
  • Miles do not expire while the account is open and in good standing

Does the fee earn out? · how we got this

The $99 fee minus $0 in printed credits leaves $99/yr to earn back through rewards — roughly $4,125 of travel spending at 2x (valuing Emirates Skywards at the same mid-range value the optimizer uses). Whether that clears depends on your actual spending.

Is this $99 fee worth it? See the break-even math →

Check the current offer on the issuer's site → Where a card link will appear once available — no link on this page pays us today.

Who this card is not for

Every point below is a term the issuer prints, read off this card's own row in our database — not an opinion about the card. One thing on this card rules out a kind of spender:

  • Anyone who doesn't spend at Emirates. Its largest printed rate, 3x on flights, pays only at Emirates. Anywhere else it earns its base 1x, so the headline number is a loyalty rate rather than a category rate — which is why no ranking on this site counts it.

More from Barclays

All Barclays cards →

Which card should this spending actually be on? The demo re-scores a year of realistic spending against every card in a wallet — free, no signup. See it on sample data →

Verified 2026-08-21 against issuer terms · sources: www.emirates.com. Spot an error? Tell us.

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