They told us at last year that they were working on this. Time to get an update.

Patience young grasshopper. We are meeting in March and I will attempt to pry an answer out of the Skywards team then...:)

Before many of my flights I have made a habit of trying to enter the compiled email code from this thread. It has always told me to date that the code I entered is invalid.

My DXB -> SFO flight in 2-days is showing F4 J7 Y0 on KVS, so I thought there would be a better chance of the code working. So, I entered it and got this message:

"The PNR entered is not eligible for this Offer"

It appears that the email code is locked to eligible PNR's.

Are you flying straight ICN-DXB-SFO or do you have a stopover in DXB?

I stopped over in Dubai for 4 days.

Dxb-lax ek217
 

Is it worth spending AED2700 or US$750 to upgrade on the DXB-LAX EK217 flight? I got an email offer to upgrade from Y->J.

Are they lie-flat seats on the 777-300ERs on that route?

Yes to both questions! :D

It's published as a 16.5 hr flight. We know actual flight time is less. Even if it was 15-hrs, that's only $50 per hr. I know what I would do...

I'm told that this flight is often weight and pax restricted (ie 250 max in Y as opposed to filling to the limit of 304). So op-ups are rarer as EK tend to not overbook this flight.

That is $750 I would spend in a split second!

Do you have any status with Emirates?

Thanks for all your responses. No, I do not have any status with Emirates.

Once I paid for J class from DXB-JNB and ended up with the old style bucket seats and rued my decision :mad:

Can we know when is your flight and when did you received the email?

Just curious how this thing works, And yes I would pay for the upgrade too.

I am flying out on Sun Feb 26th and received the offer on Thu Feb 23rd.

It certainly seems to be odd behavior with Emirates. On my DXB -> SFO flight it appears that EK did send out upgrade emails. But, I never received one and I am Gold (which is likely the reason I wouldn't have received one). The flight ended up having about 8 seats empty in Y and thus there were no op-ups (even though KVS showed Y0 for the past several days).

I find it strange that EK would enable non-status flyers to upgrade for $750'ish, and not allow status flyers the same opportunity. My only choice would have been to pay the fare difference ($3500'ish) or use 67,500 miles to upgrade the leg.

I understand the hypothesis that EK wants Gold members to buy F and J fares, but it just smacks of a complete lack of valuing their elites when they offer non-status blues a far better upgrade path than elites.

You make a very good point. I suppose the challenge is how or where do they draw the line in terms of the upgrade path for elites? For example, if you are a Gold and continue to buy Flex Y fares, should you receive upgrade email offers all the time?

This is only my 4th year flying EK and I have received multiple email offers - but more when I was Blue and Silver than Gold. There didn't appear to be any method to when they were sent out. The last one I received I declined because I was confident that I would be op-upped if it was oversold in Y (which it was).

If you crawl over the EK forum a little more, you'll see a bunch of us who even question the "value" of being Gold (especially if you are flying paid J). There's certainly no visible incentive to continue to fly EK once you have reached 50,000 tier miles.

I state the following not to boast nor to prove anything, but I earned 300,000 tier miles last year and will probably do closer to 500,000 tier miles this year - for that, I'd like to see some additional benefits (such as lounge access in outstations, preference when it came to email upgrade offers etc). Obviously I'm continuing to fly EK despite their loyalty program, because the cost and schedule suit me at present.

I am in agreement with you on everything. I wrote Skywards an email to the effect of the tier program being ineffective. One F ticket from SFO -> CAN roundtrip gets 52k tier miles. How can a FF program reward somebody flying 300k - 500k miles per year the same as a guy that flies a single F return? It doesn't make any sense and doesn't foster a loyal repeat clientele.

Hopefully when you meet with Skywards next month they will tell you some good news about plans on a new tier level, ideally around 150k - 200k miles to make it only obtainable by the much more frequent travelers, with perks such as space-available upgrades at time of boarding. (One can dream....)

OT, but on my mind, in regards to I/O, when in Dubai one of the people there told me this was really a status level for people who are the decision makers of high-volume corporate travel on EK. I.E. The guy responsible for booking their Fortune 500 company's travel and have pushed enough business to EK. These are the same guys that get the Range Rover chauffeur drive. So, I am not entirely sure if I/O is the "secret" step up from Gold, it may be unobtainable by just a frequent traveller. If I/O was for frequent travelers I would certainly hope 300k - 500k tier miles per year would qualify.