MUCDavid

Hi everyone,

I am a first time poster after doing a little research over the last couple of days. This forum is a great wealth of knowledge. I love the Emirates A380 business class product and have in the last few years flown a few times with them by choice. I am a platinum member and have never used my points till now. The dream is First with my partner (who has never been in first class) on a holiday.

About 2 months ago I started enquiring about 2 x F seats from MUC to BNE on an A380, but there was no availability for my chosen dates. I started to throw any date at them from August to December 2017 to try and get a feeling on availability and after quite a while found that there was no availability at all. I was at the time surprised but it seems after reading this forum that my experience is pretty normal and maybe even accepted as part of the frequent flyer game/challenge.

Initially I was told there are no waiting lists but then suddenly (I think as a result of an email I sent) a waitlisted booking appeared. On my next phone call to them they said this had been done by headquarters. Then on my next phone call to them the lady suggested that seats are available from MUC to DXB and that she can confirm these. This left my booking half confirmed (DXB to BNE still waitlisted), but then I was told that the booking would expire in 7 days. So for the last 3 weeks I have called to ask for a special request to extend the confirmed seats in order to stop the whole booking being removed.

My first choice would be MUC to BNE in early December returning mid Jan 2018 (with the DXB to BNE being EK434/EK435), which I accept is a busy time of year.

So my first question, is my experience similar to other people’s here?

I have just found out about ExpertFlyer. Is their Reward/Upgrade availability reliable? For example I searched for a F reward from MUC to BNE for the next few weeks with EK434 being the flight from DXB to BNE and got nothing. For most EK434 flights there are still 4 or more seats still available in F according to its seating information. In December F is empty or has 2 seats “blocked” but I realize this is a long way off yet.

Can anyone offer any hints or tips? My current plan is to simply call once a week and check if there is anything free and/or get my current confirmed seats extended for another 7 days. Or is this a waste of time because IF Emirates decides to release a F seat they will probably do it only 20 to 30 days before the flight.

Are there any websites that show seating historically? I am interested to know what F looked like on EK434 in December last year or the year before?

Thanks heaps for any and all comments, tips, hints or advice.