I wish I could my friend! Whilst I've travelled to Dubai dozens of times over the years, I've never travelled over the Christmas period as prices were too high in Economy (to me, that is).

However, a few weeks ago I managed to bag an LHR-DXB flight in Economy for the princely sum of 465GBP + the few points I had, which is quite good value for the Christmas/New Year holiday season.

At almost exactly the same time I lost my Silver membership (after I managed to sneak in after making the booking to select my seats as the site still showed me as Silver EK member during the booking!).

A day later I got an email from EK about 'loss of privileges' because of losing my Silver membership. I was hoping my seats were still reserved but they've gone now.

I actually did check the price of an upgrade and it was an extra 2,300GBP to pay. This is just an opportunistic brief holiday in Dubai to see what it's like in late December so I really wouldn't want to spend that kind of cash on the trip.