MasterP0

Hi,

I made my original first time booking for Economy flights for myself and 2 sons.

27 March 2015 - BHX - DXB
28 March 2015 - DXB - BKK

8 April 2015 - SIN - DXB
12 April 2015 - DXB - BHX

1. Original reason for booking departure from BHX, at 20h30 I could easily fit in a full days work and leave for holiday.
   
2. I now want to upgrade to Business Class - Return. (initially was just going to upgrade BHX - DXB - BKK for an extra (+-£2K))
   
3. Playing around with flights from LHR (Same dates) any time, I could upgrade to Business Class for the full Return and it would only cost me an additional £3154.
   
4. I'm 101 miles away from LHR, how do I get the Free Transfers, do I just pay extra from my address as I'm out of the 70miles free transfers radius?
   
5. Departing from LHR would mean a 6 hour stop over, that sounds painful, any advice?

Thoughts, suggestions, advice greatly appreciated.

Thanking YOU.

Ahmed777

You would pay for the additional miles. I don't remember the exact figure, but they are quite reasonable with this.

The 6-hour stopover will not be bad at all given that you are entitled to J lounge access in Dubai, where you can sleep, shower, eat and have access to free wifi. Time will pass quickly.

missingmanager

Is the distance you quote to Heathrow the driven distance? The 70 mile allowance means that travel is free anywhere within A 70 mile radius of Heathrow. I have friends who were expecting to pay for excess miles only to find they were within the 70 mile circle. I have never checked but I assume that additional miles are calculated the same way.

Dave Noble

One thing to consider would be what the cancellation penalty is on the original booking since the change of airports will count as cancel/rebook iirc

eternaltransit

They may waive reissue fees for an upgrade to a higher cabin though - as always the advice is to check your fare conditions, OP!

With regards to the excess mileage, I think they will charge you a relatively reasonable excess fee.

6 hour stopover is really about 5 hours, as you need to time to land, disembark, clear security, then board your plane 30/40 minutes or so before its scheduled departure time. I note you are travelling with your two sons, so I suspect that going to the spa for an hour is out of the question. But it's only 3-4 hours to kill, after you take into account shopping/gifts/food and drink in the lounge. I think painful is not quite the correct adjective to use If it all gets too much you can go and play games in the kids lounge...

MasterP0

Thank you all for comments.

My two sons are 14 and 20 so spa it IS!

I managed to call Emirates last night, and this is where I am utterly confused.

I used Google Flights to check flights from LHR, when I called up Emirates they said to upgrade would be an additional £7000 for Return from Heathrow! When I checked this via Google Flights I would only have to pay £3/3.5K to upgrade for the return Journey, so I'm back to square one!

I hope this link works https://www.google.co.uk/flights/#se...3;q=lhr+to+dxb.

I called both Emirates and Qantas both quoting different pricing (way more than shown on this link)..........Any and all assistance greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Dave Noble

It isn't just an upgrade; with the change of departure city it comes under cancellation and rebooking

If the departure city stayed the same, then the fare rules may well allow for no penalty to upgrade

Dave Noble

I wouldn't rely on a 3rd party site for what Emirates will charge. Looking at the image, the price is being estimated on what would be charged by Qantas ; Google flights may also not be using a UK point of sale and be seein quite different availability ( US vs UK availability is very different )

Doing a dummy booking on Emirates, the price is quoting out at GBP3325 per person for that journey

Just a simple r/t will show quite different fares using Google vs Emirates itself by about GBP700 just on a v basic LHR-BKK return due to the different availabilty that google is seeing

edy4eva

For these dates it's better you stick with BHX, with the lowest business fare pricing per person at around 2k GBP, whereas from LON (mostly LGW) it's 3.2k GBP pp.

Not sure what you've paid for the economy fare, but say it was 2k for 3 passengers, the difference will be ~4k GBP from BHX and ~7k from LON, which indicates what EK quoted you was accurate.

Like Dave Noble said, you can't rely on a 3rd party website like google (or even their matrix) to get seat availability/pricing.

ft101

I'll disagree with the previous posters regarding the stop over. I did a similar length one once a few years ago and wouldn't dream of repeating the experience.

I'm usually a guy who can sit with a book/laptop and a drink no problem, but something about the airport experience just dragged it out.

MasterP0

So my travel agent (flight centre) have managed to get me the following price and are now holding them for me until I've spoken to Emirates:

Business Class Price is £6433 for all 3 departing on 27 March 2015 from and back into BHX, which is a difference of £3536.26, which isn't that bad I guess...........Only gripe with the above price is that the flight on Sunday, 12 April 2015 is at 08h05 instead of 15h30 flight to BHX which is the one I REALLY want.

I think its a great price per person, certainly within my budget. Sure I would've liked to pay less, but at £2144 pp PLUS a half day in BKK, I'm certainly not complaining

The issue I have with the morning flight is having to get to the airport 2 hours before, but flying Business Class will definitely take the sting out of that........getting excited, and as per usual I will milk it for all it's worth, hahahaha, with the added bonus of free transfers. etc. need to double check what other benefits I get

Thanks for all you help, much appreciated. Now to read seat guru etc. to try get the best seats in Business Class once I've found out which aircrafts fly the route *Face Palm*