bbar2000

Company booked my EK flights with the first leg out of Heathrow on codeshare with Qantas, I didn’t think much about it, thought other than the different paint on the tin it would be pretty much the same. ! Boy was I naive.

Background: : (Booked on Qantas operated flight with ticket issued on EK5102)

The issues:
1. Booked about a week in advance, constantly tried to pre-select a seat which was never possible. On initial booking was able to select 80A , but this immediately went to pending state and a couple of hours later found I had been evicted J. After that all seats showing as full both on Qanta’s web site and on Emirates.

2. On flight day was flying in to Heathrow with non EK partner (landed in T5) and even though received mails saying check in now enabled etc. , every time I tried to check in it told me it was not possible (EK web site redirected me to Qantas website and Qantas web site tells me check in not possible.) So, no ticket so couldn’t do a terminal transfer in Heathrow, rather had to exit T5 and go across to T3 by train.

3. Due to the weather today I had been put on an earlier flight by the T5 crowd but thought not a problem, I’d check-in in T3 and get some time in the lounge. I guess if I had thought about this I should have expected the next bit; EK couldn’t check me in as the flight was operated by Qantas but Qantas check-in desk want open for another 2 hours. (ok I was early anyway but if I had stuck with an EK flight it wouldn’t have been a problem)

4. Finally checking in at the Qantas desk, tons of seats available window/aisle, front/back take your pick!

5. All checked in, past security, and headed to the familiar EK lounge, and surprise surprise denied entrance! , yes it’s an EK booking you have but it’s a Qantas flight so you can’t come in here off to Qantas with you.

6. I finally got a bit fed up and told the Emirates guys cancel my ticket and give me a full Qantas ticket as Emirates where adding no value whatsoever and I would be better getting a Qantas ticket and getting some Avios ! (All right I was getting p********* off ) Off course they couldn’t do it but said talk to Qantas, in the Qantas lounge the same question resulted in a comment to talk to EK. No surprise there then.

So in summary this was a bloody pain in the a***, how the hell can this benefit the customer? It’s a mess. My strong advise to everyone here who thinks like I did that an EK booking would be seamless across partner carriers, especially Qantas are very wrong. The EK code share booking was a complete pain from start to end. Never again. The Emirates and Qantas statement that this tie up benefits the customer is complete trash, I am sure they experience efficiencies and cost savings in the tie up but the reality is that based on my personal experience the code share agreement is poorly implemented and managed and is a serious inconvenience to their clients.
Comments more than welcome .

BB

ps: Sorry (Silver lining) The new Qantas lounge in T3 is very nice !