There is no doubt EK need to be more transparent on this.

They need to put a one line in bold stating that the lowest ticket type will be purchased on a change and it may change a flex to a saver.

Its not rocket science but it is not great from EK that this is not clear to customers. Even EB - a seasoned EK flyer fell foul of this one...

When purchasing the new ticket, does it provide an option to read the fare rules?

I checked them and it was not actually clear. I read it as a flex and it came out as a saver.

For retail customers (as most of us are) you should be completely transparent. For corporate customers less of a duty of care applies. At the end of the day as we've seen from the employment issue EK acts in line with local law (as it is entitled) but if it wants to be a global player, it could be argued it should act with global best practices. If I was advising EK I would tell them to add a line in bold on the website to state what will happen on the amending booking section.

With the employment issue, it acted in line with medical requirements that apply to UAE.

I have always done changes over the phone ( and normally do bookings that way ) but do know when making a booking , it gets to a page with flight details, a tick box to see what miles would be earned and also a link to fare rules

What does the change flight option do?

For nearly all normal retail customers , I would posit that the lowest price is what is wanted and it is a small percentage that want specific fares

You get the flight schedule with no mention of the ticket type until after you click go....

Its annoyed me when I paid for a flex y then paid to upgrade one leg to J and it downgrades the remaining y leg from flex to saver.

I understand the logic, it should just be made clear as people who buy flex often chose to do so for a reason.

If I'm simply changing dates on a ticket, I pay my change fee and expect it to be re-issued in the same fare class. Even if prices have changed in the meantime it should make no difference. If my fare class is unavailable, I'll expect to pay a fare difference to move to a higher fare class.

I have never heard of any other airline rebooking in a lower fare class. I can't see any reason why it would be in the interests of the customer.

Of course, if I choose to change my routing, then all bets are off and a full reprice is in order.

Well it took a while and a few back and forths but Emirates has agreed to credit me the full tier miles for the flight. I didn't have to pay anything extra for that.

At the end of the day if this is EK's policy thats fine, they just need to communicate it. Nobody is going to check to see if they've been downgrade (fare class wise) unless they know its a possibility. I've made 100's of changes online (I do all my booking/changes online where possible) I'm surprised this is the first time I've had this happen.