Deep, deep, deep, deep undercover. On EK...
May 18, 2011, 10:34 am
#1
Moderator: Trip Reports
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Denver, CO
Programs: UA GS-2MM, Marriott Ambassador
Posts: 3,721
Deep, deep, deep, deep undercover. On EK...
This happened by accident. I swear.
A few nights ago, I was minding my own business, working away at home, glancing at FT every now and then. Kids and wife sound asleep. Cat idly purring away, quietly scheming up a way to ruin a piece of furniture. Or pee in my sock-drawer.
I was Skyping with one of the EK regulars, Ung1 about what we thought was a pricing anomaly on the EK website.
Here's the gist of it.
The booking engine was showing a fare of US$370 for CMB-DXB-MLE-DXB-CMB. Itinerary gave you 40,400 Skywards miles and 17,000 tier miles. It was basically 4 x 4hr legs.
Here's the kicker. What class do you reckon that was in?
Coach?
Nope
Business?
Wrong again
First?
Boom. We have a winner. And it was First on the 777-300ER with suites. Bling of the highest order.
Now, I may have received a D in 12th grade math - but even my simple, alcohol impaired brain tells me that US$370 is a good deal. In fact, it was a steal. That's just a little over $90 bucks a sector – or around $22.50 an hour (actually, the reason I received that grade was because I never went to class) But that’s another story. For another time.
I could easily drink a bottle of Dom each leg and be miles ahead. None of that Moet or Veuve dogwash. This was the good stuff. Google how much a 2002 bottle of that bubbly is and see what you come up with.
So, as I write this - I'm sitting in the Emirates First Class lounge in the sandpit (Dubai). Completed 3 out of 4 legs. I left Singapore in the wee hours of Tues morning. And am aiming to get home sometime Thursday night. Travel time is a brisk 48-hours. I think.
Have no idea what day it is. My liver is at the point of failure. And most of the crew we meet think we are both clinically insane. Oh, I forgot, Ung1 is riding shotgun with me on this mad adventure. Because I wanted a witness. And besides, when my wife finds out, I'll need his sworn testimony that I wasn’t eloping with someone called Jessica.
But I digress.
We have much to tell. But no photos. Definitely no photos.
More to come.
A few nights ago, I was minding my own business, working away at home, glancing at FT every now and then. Kids and wife sound asleep. Cat idly purring away, quietly scheming up a way to ruin a piece of furniture. Or pee in my sock-drawer.
I was Skyping with one of the EK regulars, Ung1 about what we thought was a pricing anomaly on the EK website.
Here's the gist of it.
The booking engine was showing a fare of US$370 for CMB-DXB-MLE-DXB-CMB. Itinerary gave you 40,400 Skywards miles and 17,000 tier miles. It was basically 4 x 4hr legs.
Here's the kicker. What class do you reckon that was in?
Coach?
Nope
Business?
Wrong again
First?
Boom. We have a winner. And it was First on the 777-300ER with suites. Bling of the highest order.
Now, I may have received a D in 12th grade math - but even my simple, alcohol impaired brain tells me that US$370 is a good deal. In fact, it was a steal. That's just a little over $90 bucks a sector – or around $22.50 an hour (actually, the reason I received that grade was because I never went to class) But that’s another story. For another time.
I could easily drink a bottle of Dom each leg and be miles ahead. None of that Moet or Veuve dogwash. This was the good stuff. Google how much a 2002 bottle of that bubbly is and see what you come up with.
So, as I write this - I'm sitting in the Emirates First Class lounge in the sandpit (Dubai). Completed 3 out of 4 legs. I left Singapore in the wee hours of Tues morning. And am aiming to get home sometime Thursday night. Travel time is a brisk 48-hours. I think.
Have no idea what day it is. My liver is at the point of failure. And most of the crew we meet think we are both clinically insane. Oh, I forgot, Ung1 is riding shotgun with me on this mad adventure. Because I wanted a witness. And besides, when my wife finds out, I'll need his sworn testimony that I wasn’t eloping with someone called Jessica.
But I digress.
We have much to tell. But no photos. Definitely no photos.
More to come.
May 18, 2011, 3:32 pm
#5
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Penang, Malaysia
Programs: OZ *G, HHonors Gold, Aclub Plat
Posts: 1,025
I'm doing this run next week. Can't wait.
Eightblack: Just one run for you? Thought you would be "crazy" enough to do a couple back to back. Imagine how many bottles of Dom you could polish off.. Maybe break some FT record?
Eightblack: Just one run for you? Thought you would be "crazy" enough to do a couple back to back. Imagine how many bottles of Dom you could polish off.. Maybe break some FT record?
May 18, 2011, 5:43 pm
#7
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Seattle
Programs: AS MVPG 75K
Posts: 2,574
What an amazing deal, I don't even want the miles, just to experience EK F. I'd pay the same for a Y positioning flight on RJ as I would for this.
EDIT: Can't seem to find any dates that work for me that actually connect through DXB. All the connecting flights push it up into the $2k range.
EK forum seems to indicate that this is dead. Way to get my hopes up, eightblack! Damn me for not realizing EK had a nonstop CMB-MLE hence the ridiculously low price before looking at the specific flights.
EDIT: Can't seem to find any dates that work for me that actually connect through DXB. All the connecting flights push it up into the $2k range.
EK forum seems to indicate that this is dead. Way to get my hopes up, eightblack! Damn me for not realizing EK had a nonstop CMB-MLE hence the ridiculously low price before looking at the specific flights.
Last edited by BrewerSEA; May 18, 2011 at 5:55 pm
May 18, 2011, 7:00 pm
#8
Moderator: Trip Reports
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Denver, CO
Programs: UA GS-2MM, Marriott Ambassador
Posts: 3,721
Despite our antics, there was a thinly veiled attempt to justify this quick sojourn to the desert. Some of you may be aware that the Dubai Do is on at the end of June. And sadly, I am the sucker who volunteered to organize this party.
But if we get 40-people to attend (as is already indicated by our confirmed list), I will simply be amazed. Actually, Ill be delighted. I will probably even offer to buy everyone a drink.
Ung1 and I decided that we would set off under the cover of darkness for the sandpit to check out the hotels, talk with Emirates and generally goof off for 2-days.
But I need to wind back the tape so to speak. Just a little bit.
FT is littered with stories surrounding mistake fares. But they are myths to most of us. Simply unattainable to the ordinary person. However, this is FT. Ordinary is not a part of our vocabulary.
This routing was clearly an error on EKs part. And before you all rush off to check what youre doing this weekend, and look up on Google Maps, just where the hell Male is located, I bring you bad news. The fare/routing combo we purchased is no longer available.
So you can stop sucking in your stomach in front of the bathroom mirror, yelling out to your significant other asking honey, do I look fat in this swimsuit?
Anyway.
Obviously alarm bells started ringing deep in the bowels of EKs inventory management department when the F cabins started to fill up on the CMB-DXB-MLE legs faster than a pub with a sign out the front which reads free beer.
Or something like this.
And the person who made the mistake is probably now working the ramp, at a regional airport in Uzbekistan.
When Ung1 and I were first talking to each other about the fare (and the thread which had started on the EK forum as a result of such a find), we immediately agreed that this could not be true.
As a semi-joke, I told him to book it. For both of us. This was mistake number one.
You should never give a much younger person, (and someone with a freshly minted degree in computer engineering), any sort of command which involves a credit card, and buying something online. Because you will lose. Everytime.
So with confirmation email number one safely received in my inbox, I challenged Ung1 to see whether or not he could pull off the same booking again. Only a couple of weeks later.
Minutes later and bam. Another confirmation email from one of EKs servers buried in a lot of sand somewhere.
So for the princely sum of $1400, we had 2 round-trips from CMB to MLE (via Dubai). Each. Wed earn close on 80,000 Skywards miles. And receive 34,000 tier miles. And 8-sectors in F. And multiple visits to the F lounge in Dubai, T3.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, for a start, we both had to get to CMB. Because we both live in SIN. Easy enough though as the flight which runs from SIN-CMB on EK, then continues on to DXB. You dont even have to get off the flight. Its even the same flight number.
So we book those flights as well. By this stage, we have airline PNRs up the wazoo. But we would have to suck it up and travel from SIN to CMB in Y. As in Coach. As in e-c-o-n-o-m-y. Because that return ticket from SIN to CMB in Y was exactly the same price as the whole CMB-MLE-CMB return in F.
Its ok if youre confused. So am I. And Im the one travelling.
Monday rolls around and we agree to meet at Changi. Our flight departs at a rather rude hour of the morning. Something like 12.55am Tuesday. I think Ung1 slept at Changi the day before he was so excited. And truth be told, this was my first revenue flight in EK First. Ever. So I was rather looking forward to the trip as well.
Check-in was not as straight forward as we would have hoped.
The poor hapless contract staff person was perplexed. The process to check both of us in on 2 separate locators took the best part of 25-minutes. But we finally worked it out. Or rather, she did. Ung1, to my astonishment, checks his bag all the way in from SIN to MLE. I had a quiet chuckle. The confidence of the younger generation amazes me. I thought to myself that his chances of ever seeing that bag again were about the same as me scoring a date with Blake Livelys mother.
Or something like this.
The 3hr flight from SIN to CMB was uneventful. Load was light, so we scored a row to ourselves down the back. Tried to get some sleep before we were allowed to walk forward to the promised land. To where the Dom was chilling. To where, as my daughter says, "the Big Seats are".
The Y pursar working that sector was confused. As was every other EK staff member we ran into during our trip. Why were we holding 2 different boarding passes he wanted to know. More importantly, why were we holding one which read Y and another which read F? On the same flight.
When you land in Columbo, if youre heading on to Dubai, you dont even have to get off. The cleaners come on, the staff run away and you just sit there for an hour. Except for us.
We got to do the airline reverse walk of shame. From our lowly Y seats to EKs finest.
As we settled in to our new row 1 environment, something caught my eye. A young person, who looked no older than twenty, sat down in 1A. Then he started taking pictures of the suite and his surroundings. He was busier than a Japanese tourist at their first midget tossing competition. He even took a picture of the champagne glass.
That is not the behavior of a rational person I said to myself. Only an FTer would do such a thing.
Turns out that this person wasn't an FT'er as we would later discover. But he had read about the fare on the EK Forum.
Crikey...now it was getting interesting.
But if we get 40-people to attend (as is already indicated by our confirmed list), I will simply be amazed. Actually, Ill be delighted. I will probably even offer to buy everyone a drink.
Ung1 and I decided that we would set off under the cover of darkness for the sandpit to check out the hotels, talk with Emirates and generally goof off for 2-days.
But I need to wind back the tape so to speak. Just a little bit.
FT is littered with stories surrounding mistake fares. But they are myths to most of us. Simply unattainable to the ordinary person. However, this is FT. Ordinary is not a part of our vocabulary.
This routing was clearly an error on EKs part. And before you all rush off to check what youre doing this weekend, and look up on Google Maps, just where the hell Male is located, I bring you bad news. The fare/routing combo we purchased is no longer available.
So you can stop sucking in your stomach in front of the bathroom mirror, yelling out to your significant other asking honey, do I look fat in this swimsuit?
Anyway.
Obviously alarm bells started ringing deep in the bowels of EKs inventory management department when the F cabins started to fill up on the CMB-DXB-MLE legs faster than a pub with a sign out the front which reads free beer.
Or something like this.
And the person who made the mistake is probably now working the ramp, at a regional airport in Uzbekistan.
When Ung1 and I were first talking to each other about the fare (and the thread which had started on the EK forum as a result of such a find), we immediately agreed that this could not be true.
As a semi-joke, I told him to book it. For both of us. This was mistake number one.
You should never give a much younger person, (and someone with a freshly minted degree in computer engineering), any sort of command which involves a credit card, and buying something online. Because you will lose. Everytime.
So with confirmation email number one safely received in my inbox, I challenged Ung1 to see whether or not he could pull off the same booking again. Only a couple of weeks later.
Minutes later and bam. Another confirmation email from one of EKs servers buried in a lot of sand somewhere.
So for the princely sum of $1400, we had 2 round-trips from CMB to MLE (via Dubai). Each. Wed earn close on 80,000 Skywards miles. And receive 34,000 tier miles. And 8-sectors in F. And multiple visits to the F lounge in Dubai, T3.
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, for a start, we both had to get to CMB. Because we both live in SIN. Easy enough though as the flight which runs from SIN-CMB on EK, then continues on to DXB. You dont even have to get off the flight. Its even the same flight number.
So we book those flights as well. By this stage, we have airline PNRs up the wazoo. But we would have to suck it up and travel from SIN to CMB in Y. As in Coach. As in e-c-o-n-o-m-y. Because that return ticket from SIN to CMB in Y was exactly the same price as the whole CMB-MLE-CMB return in F.
Its ok if youre confused. So am I. And Im the one travelling.
Monday rolls around and we agree to meet at Changi. Our flight departs at a rather rude hour of the morning. Something like 12.55am Tuesday. I think Ung1 slept at Changi the day before he was so excited. And truth be told, this was my first revenue flight in EK First. Ever. So I was rather looking forward to the trip as well.
Check-in was not as straight forward as we would have hoped.
The poor hapless contract staff person was perplexed. The process to check both of us in on 2 separate locators took the best part of 25-minutes. But we finally worked it out. Or rather, she did. Ung1, to my astonishment, checks his bag all the way in from SIN to MLE. I had a quiet chuckle. The confidence of the younger generation amazes me. I thought to myself that his chances of ever seeing that bag again were about the same as me scoring a date with Blake Livelys mother.
Or something like this.
The 3hr flight from SIN to CMB was uneventful. Load was light, so we scored a row to ourselves down the back. Tried to get some sleep before we were allowed to walk forward to the promised land. To where the Dom was chilling. To where, as my daughter says, "the Big Seats are".
The Y pursar working that sector was confused. As was every other EK staff member we ran into during our trip. Why were we holding 2 different boarding passes he wanted to know. More importantly, why were we holding one which read Y and another which read F? On the same flight.
When you land in Columbo, if youre heading on to Dubai, you dont even have to get off. The cleaners come on, the staff run away and you just sit there for an hour. Except for us.
We got to do the airline reverse walk of shame. From our lowly Y seats to EKs finest.
As we settled in to our new row 1 environment, something caught my eye. A young person, who looked no older than twenty, sat down in 1A. Then he started taking pictures of the suite and his surroundings. He was busier than a Japanese tourist at their first midget tossing competition. He even took a picture of the champagne glass.
That is not the behavior of a rational person I said to myself. Only an FTer would do such a thing.
Turns out that this person wasn't an FT'er as we would later discover. But he had read about the fare on the EK Forum.
Crikey...now it was getting interesting.
May 18, 2011, 9:32 pm
#9
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Penang, Malaysia
Programs: OZ *G, HHonors Gold, Aclub Plat
Posts: 1,025
Interesting that they let you check-in for both the flights and just move to F for the next flight 
I was going to do this as well but unsure if it was going to work out.
I was going to do this as well but unsure if it was going to work out.
May 19, 2011, 5:13 am
#10
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Singapore
Programs: IC Amb, Marriott Silver, KF Silver, MPC Silver
Posts: 207
May 19, 2011, 7:55 am
#11
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: BRU
Programs: BA Gold, Miles & More FT, IC Gold Ambassador, SPG Gold
Posts: 112
Eightblack nice deal indeed!...Here is another crazy FT member who took advantage of this crazy rate!
I hope you had fun! ^
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...ldives-3x.html
I hope you had fun! ^
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...ldives-3x.html
May 19, 2011, 8:36 am
#12
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: OSL
Programs: BA Gold | SK Gold | A3 Gold
Posts: 4,557
The 3hr flight from SIN to CMB was uneventful. Load was light, so we scored a row to ourselves down the back. Tried to get some sleep before we were allowed to walk forward to the promised land. To where the Dom was chilling. To where, as my daughter says, "the Big Seats are".
May 19, 2011, 2:56 pm
#13
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: 0031
Programs: KL Gold SkyTeam Elite Plus - SEN M&M *G
Posts: 222