Emirates airmiles

[beyond the blue]

Me and the missus have got quite a few Emirates airmiles that are due to expire in a few weeks time. We have no travel plans coming up so we thought of spending them on Emirates online shop rather than loosing them. On the shop they appear to be worth around US$400 but the site says the goods 'could' be subject to customs/import duty and VAT which is not included at checkout. Has anyone on here any experience of shopping this way and did you finish up with charge? Most of the stuff they have on there is c**p so don't fancy getting stung.

 

[Box Brownie]

I have no idea

But some random thoughts....

Is Emirates in an airline group i.e. can you use the airmiles to get flights for an EU city break with one of the partner airlines?

Or convert them to a flight voucher to avoid losing them?

In other words are there any other options than booking a flight 'now' or spending the value on their shop goods???