Originally Posted by
sfozrhfco
If you hadn't paid the change fee then the flight is not confirmed. It is the same as a travel agent making a booking on a flight and not ticketing the reservation. If they need to clear space, those are the first to go as the payment was not made to fly on that flight. If you want to be truly confirmed, you should pay the change fee in advance. Emirates was already being generous by allowing you to wait up until departure to pay the fee. Try doing that on most other airlines. They will happily charge you a fee to cancel your flight if you have a non-refundable ticket and take another fee to reticket it or even have you buy a whole new ticket.
Have done so routinely. Its always just a matter of going over to the ticketing desk and paying the supplement. No issues whatsoever. The EK Agent who made the change assured me that my seats were secure and that there was no need to pay in advance "simply pay when you go to check in - make sure you have enough time" was the advice given. I had paid for teh flight it was just the supplement that was outstanding.
In any event, it all had a happy ending - they upgraded me to Business both ways and won me back - though I suspect it was more of a function of overbooked economy and light business class and my Gold card rather than service recovery on the part of EK. ^