Conflicted Information

Booked on EK414, Expertflyer shows flight wide open in Economy. Emirates Online booking has up to 9 seats available in Economy, yet EK staff says that the flight is overbooked and I might have chance of a complimentary upgrade! I couldn't believe that, so i went and called reservations in DXB, they told me that Economy is wide open, then I went and found another EK staff, and he confirmed the previous EK staffs statement that the flight is overbooked and upgrades will happen. How could these different sources conflict each other in this way? I will find out in 3 hours when I board.


P.S. I favoured this flight thinking it was wide open and that I would have four seat for my self instead of wasting my miles. I base my decisions on Expertflyer, EK online and reservations call center as well as EK staff in the airport.

You say you board the flight in 3h which implies it is an early morning flight. Does by any chance someone mixing up the dates, i.e. You perceive your flight is tonight on Tuesday night but practically it is Wed early morning?

I took care of that through out my searches.


Now Expertflyer shows Econonmy unavailable. 1:30 hrs to go

Results?

Complimentary Business Upgrade Recieved

EK staff was right

Expertflyer, EK online site and reservations call center were wrong, the flight was over booked.


It is good to mention that the latters also mislead me on a SYD to DXB flight where they showed a wide open flight but found a fully booked one.

I will rethink renewing my membership with Expertflyer, eventhough it may only show what ever EK system tells it to.

You have to be careful when interpreting availability tools for several reasons.

I don't think it is consistent. I recently had a case where my travel agent was showing the flight full. I said that I was seeing it on Expertflyer as wide open. She said she would call EK and check. She came back 10 minutes later with a seat... So in this case, Expertflyer was well worth the subscription.

How accurate is the "preview seat availability" option on Expedia.com ? I've been using that recently as a guideline to availability.

Seat maps are notoriously bad guides to load because many people do not preselect seats, and seats are blocked for various reasons even if empty.