But they also charge a booking fee over what is available online.

I have only ever done this once so my knowledge is limited, but I don't recall being charged a booking fee. I was charged the premium for the Flex fare (the price of which I couldn't see on-line) but no mention was ever made of a booking fee. This was throught the Manchester UK call centre.

There was certainly no Travel Agent commission to pay.

The fares are higher if you call EK directly and the agents often can't tell which fares are saver and which are flex--especially if one way books as saver and the other flex. I have gone through this several times where the ticket was issued and the fare basis was actually a saver as the agents were clueless. If I were to book with EK, I look up the fare basis code and rules myself and have a travel agent book it for me to know for sure that I get what I am expecting.

You pay an extra 7% over the online fare, which isn't charged as a separate booking fee per se. That can add up to quite a bit - one can easily get a night's hotel for that amount!

There are travel agencies that give you the standard price, no surcharges whatsoever and that's what I recommend to do. Other than that there are booking tools that give access to all fares, Cytric for instance

Interesting - how do they make money?

Typically there are airlines still paying out commissions on international itineraries and EK may be still following this practice.

For example, in Australia, no airline pays commission on domestic flights but they do on international routes (albeit at a minimum).

Oh yes, I remember there was a hue and cry in India when SQ said they'd stop paying commissions and agents all said they wouldn't sell SQ tickets.

But I always thought this was on the offline prices, which are higher than the online ones. Some airlines, like Oman Air, give you a 5% discount for booking online, so presumably the undiscounted price is what an agent would get you.

I noticed this change too on CAI-DXB (round trips originating in CAI). Fares that used to be flex (Q, U, B, and M fare buckets) are now all saver. Flex fares start on W fare only. That is an increase of 1300 EGP (Q used to be around 2700 EGP and now W is around 4000), or ~200 USD.

It seems that DXB-CAI fares (round trips originating in DXB) are not changed.

The website does show Flex fares. I just searched EK404/405 to MEL. S$1043, Flex, 7500 tier miles...

But that would only be when the cheaper fares are sold out. Did you search for dates in the very near future, or a very busy period?

Earlier, all regular (well most) published fares were flex, and only special deals like companion fares or limited time sales were saver. Now they've put a 4 month max stay restriction on those same fares and made them savers.

It was a random search. April 21 SIN-MEL, April 28 MEL-SIN

I think you want to look at the result for Price (dates flexible) ;)

ohh! and why is it that there are no flights on Apr 26, 27, 30 and May 1 :confused:

All sold out! There are flights every day.