I think Ek only release , if any , Z seats for 1st class on the week of travel now.
They are making all other months/days Peak !!
This is one way they can get people to burn off more points as there must be alot of people out there who have earned alot of points , due to their genorisity, i.e 150 bonus for booking online and 50 pc bonus for being gold etc.
They arent filling 1st class with revenue , i just took a trip sydney -mauritius and return using my points and at no time , incl A380 was the 1st class cabin even half full but I had to use Peak points , even though i had NEVER had to use those before and frankly didint know that they had peak !! thought that was only with the new programme.
I did lodge m,y displeasure with them , via email to the Gold desk and to my surprise they actually rang me from dubai , didnt help that much but they did save me some points.
Anyway I am off them a bit now with this new programme , Great yu can get a oneway reward but I can get a reuturn for the same amount of points on one of their partners.