Pr0digy25, this was on a 777 - 300ER 0905 departure.

Thanks, might be flying the same route A380 next week. Will post results if I do.

In my experience, EK on board cabin upgrade is pretty tight, non-flexible and sometimes sounds stupid !

Recently, while travelling on a Y ticket from LGW-DXB the flight was fully booked and I had no options to upgrade to business at the check-in counter.

Then I went and checked with the ticketing desk, they advised me there is availability and they could sell a fresh First class ticket for around $1100USD. The ticketing desk also advised that I would be better off requesting a cabin upgrade within the flight, and it would be cheaper.

Inside the flight, when I requested cabin upgrade, they price shot up and it was a shocking $7000USD. I was told the reason being, this is "double cabin upgrade" - so thats how they always apply the rules - doesn't it sound stupid ?. I was better off buying a fresh F ticket at the airport ticketing desk........

Newbie question
 

Hi!
I have my first EK flight in March and found this thread.

I'm flying the night connection from FRA to DXB in Y and would really like to upgrade to C - if the price is right.

Although I hold Star Gold status with LH I understand there is no way to comp my status to EK to increase my chances of a OpUp.
As a base member in EK Skyward the chances seem near to nil to hope for a OpUp.
So I'm looking at a cash upgrade.

From this thread I understand that sometimes there might be a 3-day-before-flight email upgrade offer. Would that be for the entire trip or bookable on a connection by connection level? (I will be flying FRA-DXB-SEZ and SEZ-DXB Stopover DXB-SEZ). Although I would jump on a good offer for the whole trip I'm actually only looking for a good night of sleep on FRA-DXB.

Then I learned 'cash upgrade during check-in' is available. Again: this would be on a connection or trip basis? This is really during check-in (do I have to select the check-in agent to be able to do this? does online check-in change my chances of a cash upgrade being available? is there a benefit of checking in early or late?) or boarding?

Thirdly I learned that there is a slim chance to upgrade against cash on board of the plane. Since I never ever heard about this I would be interested to hear how that works. Do I approach the crew during boarding? (would they have time for that???) Or do I sit down on my lowly Y seat and once everyone is settled approach a crew member?

I know: a lot of questions. But I hope this is the right forum to ask those questions. Thanks!

Kind regards

Ham

The email before flight offer seems to be offered only on a few routes from what I gather, and no one has mentioned FRA - DXB as being one of them, so I wouldn't bet on that.

You could try calling EK and finding out about this before hand. It is unlikely that the amount quoted at check in will be lower than the fare difference online, especially if the flight is full and they are only selling the most expensive J fares.

Three years with EK (Gold) and have never received an email or got asked for a cash upgrades. I did equally Y and J in these three years.

Flew MLE-DXB-FRA on 17 February - paid C class. Wanted to upgrade the whole return trip to F, but was told that MLE-DXB was full and that I could inquire about the DXB-FRA upgrade at the airport.

Asked for the price in DXB and got quoted USD 1,300. Paid it and flew in a virtually empty cabin with the best service and food in my life.

My miles posted only at C, is this correct? I would have thought that a paid upgrade would earn at the higher rate.

You paid that for an upgrade on one leg or the remaining itinerary? For one leg, it's very expensive, considering the difference between the cheapest J fare and the F fare is 1500 USD. I think miles should post as F, maybe they didn't update it in their system. You should contact them about that.

Yeah, I thought it was expensive as well, but I wanted to fly in F. (it was just for the dxb - fra leg). Thanks for the advice about contacting them, I'll do that.

Based on feedback here I called EK.
After three attempts I learned the following:

a) Cash upgrade for fare difference is only possible for the whole FRA-DXB-SEZ direction - not for just FRA-DXB. DXB-SEZ in Business is not available for our dates...

b) FRA-DXB could be upgraded using miles (25000 thereof). As I have nil I could purchase those for 625 USD.

c) when I wanted to do so and throw 1250 USD towards EK they told me the seats would be available but they could not process my request as I never had any transaction in my EK FFP account and thus I would not be allowed to purchase miles! (I asked for exception but was denied)

I'm surprised that they would impose such a limitation....

Now I try to transfer 1 SPG point to EKs FFP and hope it will arrive in time for me to still purchase those miles in order to process the upgrade. We are flying in less 3 weeks...

Ham

So I talked to the wonderful Service Desk in Dubai and was told "upgrades paid for at the Emirates Desk in the airport are not eligible for additional miles, these are the new rules from 1 January".

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems pretty specific to me that "at the airport" "at the Emirates counter" upgrades don't give additional status miles. A paid fare differential of $1,200 per ticket for one leg would seem to more than warrant more miles. I don't understand this airline that well anyway, so I guess I'll drop it.

To close my story...

My transfer from SPG to EK took a few days. Thereafter I was able to purchase 25.000 miles for 625 USD and use them to upgrade the FRA-DXB flight.

Ham

EK 241 DXB-YYZ Y->J $3000.00 USD (even with Y 99% full).

Same as 242 but just going the other way,

Hi have a SYD > BKK return economy ticket booked. Just got an email offer for $205 AUD to upgrade the outgoing leg to biz - which I took. Was this a good deal. Paid ~$800 for the original economy ticket.

Well it is a good deal considering the flight length. On a different note, it might be interesting to know should you have not chosen the upgrade offer, would you have been upgraded anyway at the airport?
The reason why you got such offer is most likely a well overbooked Y.