I'm not arguing that they shouldn't give the lowest fare, or that it is by design. My point is that there is no warning of this and having a saver/flex combo ticket is non standard. When you originally book a ticket you do not have a choice to have saver/flex combos. Sometimes it happens as there may not be saver inventory so you get a partial flex ticket, but if you choose for a Flex ticket thats what you get. My argument is purely that there was no warning of any kind and no way for me to know this, nor any reason that I should suspect it. The point in choosing a Flex ticket is for the miles (potentially the upgrades but that is less of a perk now, and Flex doesn't mean 'Flexible' you still pay fees), so if they are going to change my ticket type there should be a clear notice that is happening and that if I don't want that to happen I need to call and speak to a person.

The screw up is that none of that happened. I would have happily paid extra for a Flex ticket on the change had Emirates bothered to tell me, and given its only 1,750 miles it seems very poor that they won't budge.

At the end of the day, as the saying goes, the customer is always right. Given Emirates admits there was no way for me to know and that their system (for reasons unknown) can't handle changing Flex tickets properly I don't see how its much to ask for me to be made whole on this.