You are right. Emirates is indeed 'aware' of this but they cannot devise a mechanism that easily to make this transparent to the general user public in the short term. That is the message I get from reliable sources. The problem is, with diverse advertised fares and code shares hanging around with multiple GDS, and once they are released they carry a commission per sale to everyone, not per flex/or saver type- so this 'localised' information is not carried thru while ticketing is done. Or in other words, it makes it difficult for the travel agent to give you a confirmation of whether you are holding a flex or saver fare ticket in combined legs before the ticketing is done, mainly becuase a) either they do not know how to look for it or b) their systems are not designed for holding this information.
But good thing is that, once an Emirates reservation is completed and ticket is issued, no matter via which system - it straight away tells you (yeah whether rightly or wrongly! as in your case) about miles entitlement directly by using the emirates locator code ‘manage my booking’ section of the website. So this gives you a chance to review, also take a print out of it and keep it for future reference, if required to claim.
EDIT: Miles info displayed is not always guaranteed correct from the numerous threads, we can hope Emirates will soon get it fixed in the near future
Originally Posted by
sfozrhfco
I have complained about this numerous times and the Skywards people do not even see what the problem is. The last ticket I booked for an employee through the website had Flex in the endorsement box on the e-ticket but when you go to manage the booking, it calculates as a saver fare on the return. So even when it says flex, you can not be sure that it is. The only way to be sure is to use a travel agent and have them check each fare basis used to ensure that every segment is a flex fare. They have really created a system which is far too complicated for anybody at Skywards to understand and not having the ability to choose a flex or saver fare easily through the website means that you have to gamble and book on the EK site or have a travel agent figure it out.
I think at this point they are just hoping that people will not notice they are only earning half the status miles and not reaching Silver/Gold as they would have every other year. I have gotten e-mail after e-mail from Skywards asking why I would want to purchase a flex fare for our employees. Even the business rewards site--a site specifically encouraging small businesses to book through EK--does not give you any information about whether the fare is flex or saver. In order to participate you have to use their booking engine. Then as I said, when the ticket is issued and it clearly says FLEX, the fare is actually Saver according to the Skywards people.
It is really such a pain to work through. Even the low cost carriers can offer different fare types on their website. EK has really got to get this sorted out--especially from the US as nearly every fare offered on the site is a saver fare.