I think you're confusing flex/saver tickets with awards. A saver reward is required to upgrade a flight, whether your revenue ticket is flex or saver (the only difference being the miles required). There are no flex upgrades - there are flex awards, but these apply only to reward bookings, not upgrades.

As far as searching for revenue fares goes, if you log into your skywards account, you have the choice between lowest (Saver, if available) and flex.

From my experience this is not completely true. I fly from BHX Business to JNB often. If I upgrade my second leg DXB-JNB to First using miles they do NOT allow you to use the First Class Lounge in Dubai Airport

That is not correct. Did your boarding pass say first class? You should have been eligible to use the F lounge at DXB if you were flying F from DXB to JNB

Did you actually go to the F lounge at DXB and were you refused? Or did you just see what was printed on the boarding pass?.

I did not get an F lounge invite on the boarding pass in a similar situation but I went to tge F lounge and they let me in. They even apologised for the error.

I have never been denied F lounge access just because I used miles to upgrade to F. All that's needed is an F boarding pass to your next destination and you are let in.

Likewise, upgraded to First on a DXB-NRT leg last summer. Boarding pass said first and into the first lounge I went. I didn't get a separate lounge invite.

As UKDoctor said, this is complete nonsense. If you have an F ticket leaving DXB, you are allowed in the F lounge.

I'm flying BHX - DXB - ISB in March.

I will be upgrading DXB - ISB using miles to business.

When i fly out BHX - DXB there is a 14 hour stopover (no flights in between).

Question i have is, as the second sector is business, will i be upgraded to Le Meridien hotel for the Dubai connect stay, or will that depend on the fact that the flight i landed in Dubai in was an economy seat?

AFAIK the stopover eligibility depends on the class of ticket that you had paid for. However I have never used this service before. There are quite a few members over here who use it frequently and they probably can confirm this

I have upgraded with points my outbound flight bhx to Shanghai
I have not upgraded return as yet.
On my eticket it only shows 30kg plus i get the gold allowance.
Should that not say 40kg?

Yes it is 40kg for Business Class. Don't worry about what it says on the ticket, a lot of the time it is never updated and reflects the old value

Using Skywards miles to upgrade on Korean codeshare
 

Hi, don't know if this is the right place for this, but I can't find anywhere else it would fit!
I am flying IAH-DXB-DUR-DXB-ICN-DXB-IAH. All my legs are Business (I) but for DXB-ICN which is on a Korean Air EK codeshare Economy (B). The system would not process a business leg and I needed to get the flight so I got it booked that way.
Is there anyway I can use skywards miles to upgrade that leg to Business?
If so, can I do it at Dubai?

any help appreciated!:)

Sorry only just seen this.

Flew J from BHX to DXB with a 4 hour wait in DXB, before the onward journey to JNB

Went into the First Class lounge reception at DXB to see if there were available seats for myself and my wife to upgrade to First. The seats were available, but I was informed that even if I processed the upgrade there and then (I had sufficient miles to do so), we would not be allowed to use the First Class lounge during for the remaining 3 hours or so before the flight.

Maybe it's different if we were able to upgrade before travelling from BHX, but given the lousy availability of upgrade seats (and having tried every day before travelling) this wasn't possible.

So, please don't tell me I'm wrong on this, as i am only reporting personal experience.

Maybe I am missing something but as a Platinum, you should have been allowed into the F lounge in DXB anyway - irrespective of whether or not you were going to upgrade to F using miles.

And the agent was wrong, if you used miles then and there to upgrade, you should be been granted F lounge access, but its a moot point as see point one...

..or maybe the op took the trip before Platinum was implemented??? But even then he should have got lounge access...

Yes sorry - to clarify this was in July last year. Quite possibly the EK person was wrong but very clear that we would not be allowed in the F lounge even after processing the upgrade.

Now I'm Platinum won't be my concern any more!!:)

The agent was wrong. Once you upgrade you will be issued an F boarding pass. If you have an F boarding pass you have lounge access.

In situations like this you could escalate to a supervisor or the path of least resistance might have been to go to the J lounge to upgrade the ticket, get your new boarding pass, then go into the F lounge. (I.E. The F dragon told you the incorrect info, does the upgrade, then makes sure you don't get in vs. leaving for a while and coming back and giving your F boarding pass to another dragon.)