Whatever happened to First class awards and upgrades
 

Suddenly Emirates has dispensed with Firat class awards and upgrades. The Z class inventory is not shown for any long distance flights.
Is it due to the new Skywards from 2010?
They must be really lucky if they are filling up the first class seats with fare paying passengers as the global economy is down. Dubai appears to be facing a loan payback crisis and may go under administration.
I flew JFK-Dubai last month and there were only 4 passengers in First class. I flew DXB-LHR two weeks ago with 4 empty suites even after a group was brought in from J class
One of the reasons I fly emirates is their easy upgrade availability from any fare. That seems to have disappeared.

My thoughts exactly; I was looking at F rewards for SYD-DXB in the next 9 months; no luck. If you happen to spot one 'normal' First or Business class reward please do share!

its ek's new business plan. that is to mess with a winning formula and fix something that isn't broken.

I think with the new skywards program, i have noticed there are less and less upgradable seats available. Especially on the A380 flights. Maybe its just the dates I am checking but I have heard from a couple of people.

They want you to book at the higher award level than Z class.

The problem with this is that it also messes with partner airlines trying to redeem on EK as they use Z class for their bookings at their own mileage levels.

I cant seem to get any F rewards upgrading from J in DEC/JAN and thats on the AKL/SYD short hops!!

I think EK may have found their winning formula to their business.... fill seats with revenue passengers not awards and upgrades. From th eflights I have been on recently th epremium bains have been full to quite full- so why shoul dthey give out the award seats and displace revenue... With F on have 8 suites - theat is not allot of inventory to play with.

I managed to upgrade to F on my flight to LAX last week at the airport-- although it was still not ocnfirmed untill check-in closed- as their was only 1 seat empty. I am sure there was zero award bookings of th eothers in F as I watch for two months for Z award to come up-- there was a few weeks of A - so i guess if is pssible that someone did use it for a peak award-- bottom lin eis they are still a business ot make money- and as much as I would like it to be easier for us to get the awards of our choice we cant. In three years I have only not got one award I was looking or waitng for and that was an upgrade y to j from CAI-DXB.

As most of the time we read on this forum the award everyone is looking for is F and it usually involves SYD or CHC or A380 -- have a look a BA and try to find F awards or upgrade awards availablity months out-- they claim there are two a day - but I am not convinced of thay during the peak days.

I've been on the look out for a first upgrade award from SFO - DXB (for next week). I can't seem to find any (and I need to spend some miles before they expire). This is the first time for me that I can't get a mileage upgrade on Emirates ... sad.

Does anyone know if I can request a mileage upgrade at check-in as a Blue member?

Have checked the Skywards website. It would appear not - sorry.:( I may be wrong though!

A 'Z' seat opened up the day before my flight. So I managed to upgraded online!

They're definitely opening up rewards a week or so out. Seat counter was showing zero inventory for I till now, and I've been checking quite often, but now 10 days before the flight it shows 9. It's also full in all classes in Economy, so maybe it's an attempt to have people upgrade using miles instead of having to op up. There's still space in ticketed classes in business. This is for JFK - DXB.

I think Ek only release , if any , Z seats for 1st class on the week of travel now.
They are making all other months/days Peak !!
This is one way they can get people to burn off more points as there must be alot of people out there who have earned alot of points , due to their genorisity, i.e 150 bonus for booking online and 50 pc bonus for being gold etc.
They arent filling 1st class with revenue , i just took a trip sydney -mauritius and return using my points and at no time , incl A380 was the 1st class cabin even half full but I had to use Peak points , even though i had NEVER had to use those before and frankly didint know that they had peak !! thought that was only with the new programme.
I did lodge m,y displeasure with them , via email to the Gold desk and to my surprise they actually rang me from dubai , didnt help that much but they did save me some points.
Anyway I am off them a bit now with this new programme , Great yu can get a oneway reward but I can get a reuturn for the same amount of points on one of their partners.

upgrade using miles on paid econ ticket
 

not familiar with EK's program. From what I've ben reading even tough there are open First or Business seats, they are not letting you upgrade using miles.

I see the two award levels. Is it a matter of not being able to use the lower amount or not being able to use any amount?

I was looking to book a ticket on EK and transfer over starwood points to EK's FF program to build up enough miles to do an upgrade?

The posts on here are either saying its not possible at all, or is possible but will have to use the higher miles amount to upgrade?

Also seems like what would be called upgrade shenanigans on other airlines forums happens where randomly some people get upgraded rather than using airline status level etc?

thx in advance

you can sometimes upgrade nowadays but usually only within the week of travel and as I stated even then sometimes not at all.

I was unable to upgrade on a previous trip exept at the airport,(only gold and I think silver can do this) but they wanted to charge more points for that.
I declined and noted that the first class cabin had 14 suites and only 6 were occupied .
You can rarely book a rewrd tkt now at the lower level , once again perhaps only in the week of departure , which is useless if you ahve to make plans however you can often get the seats at the higher level.

To sum up , it is probably worth using the points but firstly logon to skywards and check how many you need for the Peak award and also check in the NEW programme infor that comes into effect 01jan10.
I know that does not shed alot of light but it really is a gamble I guess , perhaps you can call skywards in your city aslo and ask them to check if what you want is available before moving the points.

My flight on the 26th in J just allowed me to upgrade to F on the 17th, i kept checking every day and eventually it came up. Can seem to select any seat in F, looking forwarding to flying on the A380.