I beleive there is a system to Free upgrades.

This is how i see it:

1: Economy class is fully booked. And either/both First & Business Class has few empty seats.

I can better explain with an example.

Lets say,

First class has 4 seats available, and Business class has 12 seats available.

Emirates will begin upgrading Gold members from Business to First Class. If there are only 2 gold members, they will move on to Sliver, then Blue, until the 4 seat in first class are filled.

Emirates then does the same procedure for Economy class, Gold first, then Sliver.

This System works only if Economy class is fully booked.

IF there happens to be 5 gold members on Business class then the top 4 Gold members based on Tier miles are upgraded. And normally if they are alone.

In addition, Emirates employees flying on thier own time (for example vacation) are required to dress in a certain manner, otherwise they won't be allowed to fly business or first.

Try to dress nice and you might get an upgrade.


NOTE: This system is not set in stone, and only relying on my expereince.

I hope this helps

Bee