Originally Posted by
waterandwoods
I'm looking to book two one way first class award seats ATH-EWR for my brother's honeymoon (May 2021). If only one first class seat is available I'd like to book one of them in first and one in business and keep checking for additional space to open up. What are the change fees if I am able to find an additional seat in first class? Is this the plan you would recommend? Is another F seat likely to open up close in?
The fare conditions usually specify that change fees are waived for an upgrade to a higher cabin. You’ll have to do the upgrade by calling EK, the website will charge the change fee (this is a well known IT issue which has been there for s long time). It is way to early to predict if more award seats will become available. You should therefore be prepared to fly business class if it does not happen. But it is far from impossible that your plan works. If you are prepared to pay $9.99 per month for an Expert Flyer subscription, you can set an alert to warn you as soon as an award set (Z fare bucket) becomes available. And you can check the fare conditions (and lots of other things) on EF as well.