6 hours of phone calls later, I have finally got a practical solution to what should have been an extremely simple process. I think complaints need to be filed with both companies, but I had to share here my experience of Emirates and Orbitz being simply unable to deal with each other. I will cut a long story short...

We had booked EK flights through Orbitz which included KBP-DXB and DXB-KBP sectors for later this year. Those sectors were cancelled by EK as they suspended their KBP service,with rebooking being offered to passengers free of charge. I was never actually contacted by EK about this, but had to take the initiative about a month after EK announced that the KBP route was being pulled. I asked about this later and was told that EK policy would have been to contact us around 3-4 days before the date of travel. That is very late - especially if no satisfactory alternative could be agreed on, it would usually be much more expensive for the traveller to book new tickets just 3-4 days out, even in the event of a full refund.

EK offered rebooking on PS or FZ. Orbitz would not process the change. One of the several agents I spoke to accepted that this was an involuntary rebooking, and that yes, they could rebook us, but not on a different airline. Even though EK no longer flies to KBP. They could not make the simple extension of logic that EK's offer to rebook passengers on a route they no longer operated would necessarily require rebooking onto another airline.

So Orbitz wanted specific confirmation of that from EK. I got EK to send that confirmation to Orbitz as a note on the booking record on two occasions before the message got through.

But there was another problem: was I entitled to rebooking on other dates free of charge, due to the involuntary rebooking? Depending on who you spoke to at EK, you got different answers. I was told by one agent that I could have an unlimited date change free of charge, and by another agent that the date could be changed free of charge within +/- 6 days of the original booking (I was trying to move the booking forward by 5 days). Orbitz twice called EK and were told be one agent that the date could only be moved +/- 1 day of the original booking, and on another occasion were told that no date change was allowed. So 4 conflicting sets of information about permitted date changes from EK.

The issue of course is that the twice that Orbitz spoke to EK, the EK people gave date information that was less than what I needed, and in fact information that turned out to be wrong. On my third call to EK, I spoke with an agent who simply wouldn't listen to what I was saying and started trying to tell me that EK couldn't fly to KBP for safety reasons - as if I didn't know that already, and actually that's only partly true as they had announced prior to MH17 that they were suspending the KBP route from 1st August. All that MH17 did was to bring forward the route suspension date.

I got him to put me onto a supervisor in Dubai. That supervisor confirmed that rebooking on PS was permitted free of charge with unlimited date change, also free of charge. I asked him to put that in plain language for Orbitz as a note on the booking. He did so.

When I then called Orbitz and got onto another supervisor, the person seemed incapable of reading this note, instead telling me something about being entitled to cancel the whole booking free of charge. Then I had to explain everything again, that, yes, I could be rebooked onto PS bla bla bla... despite the fact all this was there in the notes.

She then proposed that we have a conference call between myself (in Hong Kong), Orbitz (in the US) and Emirates (in Dubai). We got an EK agent who had no idea what we needed and thought we were trying to book EK flights to KBP. We got onto a supervisor. He clearly and repeatedly stated that I could be rebooked on PS for the KBP sectors free of charge, with unlimited date change free of charge. The Orbitz supervisor for some reason made him repeat this information multiple times.

Then came another twist in the tale: the Orbitz supervisor asked for a waiver code to put on the booking. EK said they can't give that, but just to put a note on the booking. Orbitz said they must have the waiver code and it's not optional. The EK agent went away to ask his supervisor, and came back with the same position, that EK can't give out a waiver code. The two were at deadlock. I sat listening to all this baffled that two of the largest companies in air travel could end up in such a stupid situation. And all the while I'm sitting there, in my 5th hour of phone conversations about this, paying for the call and having to listen to stuff that frankly shouldn't be my problem.

How would we get out of this one? Eventually the Orbitz supervisor asked EK supervisor to put a note on my booking record that my chosen rebooking date was clearly authorised as free of charge. EK had already given that information three times already. But he obliged, and gave it again. Orbitz then checked their notes, and said that okay, they could now proceed with rebooking. Though not after some more misunderstandings about what exactly needed to be rebooked, that I won't go even further into, but after that particular call, which was the longest one at 1 hour 10 minutes, the rebooking was finally issued. To get there, though, it took 2 Orbitz agents, 2 Orbitz supervisors, 3 EK agents, 2 EK supervisors and a senior EK supervisor that refused the waiver code. And it also took 6 hours of international calls, including a conference call.

Now I'm trying to work out how to convey all of this in complaints to both Orbitz and EK. Both were at fault. Orbitz were unable to follow basic authorisations from booking notes, EK provided 4 sets of conflicting information about date rebooking charges which caused Orbitz to refuse my request for date change free of charge, and then there was the stand off over waiver codes, with two monolithic company policies clashing head to head.

From reading previous comments on EK customer service, I'm not sure how far I'll get with this but given the time, energy and expense involved in sorting this very simply change, I'm loath to let it go.