My wife is booked LON-DXB on EK 004 on 10 July in economy (Skywards Saver tariff). I can't work out her fare class - this is what the Fare Calculations line says on the ticket receipt:
LON EK DXB Q162.15 356.74ULE1YGB1 EK LON328.36KLE1Y GB1 NUC 847.25END ROE0.616693
She is a Skywards Silver member and is trying to upgrade to business class with miles. The booking system keeps saying "please come back later".

Any experiences with upgrading in similar situations, any suggestions on how to do this cost effectively?

Much appreciated.

Gene

Upgrade availability usually opens up @ 48 hours before departure, but maybe even closer as they try to flog pricey biz tickets to walk up customers.

Best you can do is hold your nerve and keep everything crossed.

Good Luck

I fly on 004 errrrr quite a bit, and i have always seen spare seats in Y, J is always full and F is an area that my bread can not enter. best bet is keep looking on line, usually opens up with upgrades about 48hrs before departure. IF you get an e mail asking if you want to upgrade for $$$$$ dont, I expect theyre looking for people to move as theyre over booked.

if I go up to the emirates check in desk at glasgow and ask for upgrade for glasgow to malaysia via dubai or malaysia to glasgow via dubai leaving on july 17th and return august 11th

will i get an upgrade on either legs if i ask at the check in desk at glasgow or malaysia

Only if your already on their list for an op-up. More chance if you go to the ticket desk with your credit card in hand.

Scoop from my latest flight, though one completely clueless crew member might not have been entirely sure what he was talking about.

I was looking at the manifest and they have a list of miles for each member, and miles required to upgrade. That included Y - J, J - F and also Y - F. According to the crew, it is possible to do a Y - F upgrade on a 3 class flight using double the miles (so 65,000 miles instead of 32,500 for a Flex ticket on DXB - SIN).

I thought this was interesting as I previously thought this to be impossible.

It has always been possible (well, for the last 2-3 years at least) using on-board upgrades. You can also use this to do a double upgrade (Y-J in advance and then J-F on board).

The only catch is that no matter your base fare basis, if you upgrade from Y-J, you are shown as SAVR for mileage requirements to upgrade J-F.

Flying Rome Sydney requested upgrade for Dubai Sydney leg in Rome and was put on the computer.

On arriving at Dubai (5 hour transit) checked and advised nothing available. The staff in lounge advised to check again 40 minutes prior to departure when the flight closed which was succesfull.

As an aside I find the staff in Rome are always helpfull.

There's a lot of people posting about upgrades on EK at present. So I thought I would do a little bit of housekeeping and tidy things up (ie merge, move, tidy, add etc).

As at July 2011, loads across the network are high - so op-ups are somewhat more frequent for those with status (and some lucky ones without).

We have heard that changes are on their way, but until we can confirm and have approval to publish here, anything you might hear is innuendo.

At present, op-ups only happen as a result of "oversales" in the Y or J cabin. EK rarely oversells J and never F.

All flights are handed to the airport at the T-24 mark (meaning the airport staff have control of the flight and load management). The load controller working the flight will look at the overall load and start to "manage" the flight around the 6-hr mark (sometimes earlier, sometimes later) depending on the airport.

Here's a couple of myth-busters as far as I know...

Currently, the fare you paid (ie saver or flex) has nothing to do with your chance of an upgrade. In fact, the load controller doesn't even see your fare basis.

Upgrades are processed via your Skywards status. That's it. That's all the science to it. Not on tier miles year to date, not on date of birth, date of joining the program, not on total Skywards miles in your account. It may just even be decided alphabetically if they have more Golds than seats.

OLCI (online check-in) does not impact your ability to be upgraded from Y to J.

Sometimes, selecting a middle bulkhead seat helps (as one of the first things a load controller will do is see if/how many families are travelling) and if you are taking up a seat they need, voila, they'll move you.

Rarely does "the speech" work in remote stations as EK use a lot of contract staff and they are told to do things by the book. In addition, it is usually only an EK staff member (one in EK uniform) who has the power to upgrade. No point smiling sweetly at the check in agent who's making minimum wage, using the "we're celebrating our 12th honeymoon", or "you wont believe what happened last time we flew with you" or anything else you can think of.

However, if you are in DXB, anything goes as the staff have heard it all before and are used to it. They may put you on the "upgrade" list and if you do have status, you need to check with the agents or the desk staff at 30-40 mins prior to departure. It cant hurt, but dont count on it. And no amount of arm waving will shift them.

The other piece of advice is this. If your schedule is semi-flexible, use a tool like ExpertFlyer to monitor loads and pick the busiest. For example, I know that loads ex SIN are always busiest Fri/Sat/Sun as the flights are typically full of Aussies on their way home from holidays. Also, the most Golds I will see on a flight like that are maybe 6 in total. So chances are high.

However, if I go to DXB from SIN, then this sector is much much harder to score an op-up as the flights are elite heavy (meaning a lot of Golds and Silvers) plus the fact that the J and F cabins are typically full of rich oil guys and bankers...

If you cant get your head around using EF, then call your local EK office if you have one, and politely enquire as to how busy the flight is. Do not ask "oy, how busy is this flight as I'm looking to score a free upgrade?". Better to ask nicely "I'm thinking of upgrading one or more of my flights using miles, could you tell me my chances?". The second way is more likely to get you a co-operative agent. The agent may innocently let you know that Y is very full and using miles to upgrade would be a good idea. If they say this, do nothing, especially if you are Gold, as an op-up is likely.

If they toe the company line and give you nothing, simply hang up and call again. It is the FT mantra.

Remember, upgrades only happen because the airline wants them to happen. Rarely do they "comp" good customers for their loyalty. They op-up because they need the seat. Your seat. Anything can happen on the day though. Boarding late doesnt seem to help. Nor does boarding early.

99% of all the op-ups I have received have been given to me at check-in (not at the gate). Typically, its non status passengers who receive gate upgrades - because the staff are still working the flight and are under the pump to get the flight out on time.

Hope this helps...

Thanks for this eightback, great post!

You mean they're going to make it harder for me to get an op up or any other kind of upgrade? I guess that would push me back to the Star Alliance and to abandon EK totally (I really don't have any long-term commitment to EK. If they scratch my back I'll scratch theirs, otherwise...).

Well, my experience is quite the opposite. 99% of my op-up's have been at the gate, and I've been Gold for a while now. My only op-up at checkin was last Tuesday in Europe.

Other than that, what you say makes a lot of sense.

Why? Because they might introduce a system which uses actual relevant data to allocate operational upgrades? EK in my mind, has to introduce a system which uses a set of criteria (ie like UA does, where they view fare paid, status, etc to allocate). No system will be perfect, but anything they introduce will be a lot more efficient than the arbitrary process which they use now.

Like you, I've spent a lot of time on UA metal over the years and I have probably received 3 op-ups during that time. Sure, I've had 60-70 more - but they were all using upgrade instruments.

I think this is very station dependent. At a hub such as DXB, it makes sense that they're working the flight up until the last minute, managing misconnects, delays, overbooking etc.

Here's another data point.

Lets say one of you is Gold. And the other is Blue. You are either on a joint booking (single PNR) or you have linked PNR's (which can be done via reservations). This is most often done when their are kids on the reservation.

When the flight is under departure control, the load controller will actually split the 2 x pax as far as upgrade priority is concerned, as you will be processed via status. You just have to hope that the EK person is astute enough to realise that the second person on the reservation needs to come with you.

I will let you know how up to date this process is on Sunday when my daughter and I check in at MEL for the 405 back to SIN

Interesting. Didn't know that.

Thought it is different as my experience shows, that I was more likely upgraded when I didn't check-in.