Upgrade rip-off?
 

Forgive me if this has previously been addressed.

I have been trying to upgrade the outbound journey of my upcoming JNB-DXB-JED for 2 passengers.

As it happens, the Skywards and EF showed availability of the sectors JNB-DXB and DXB-JED, but at different times. I upgraded each sector as it became available (2 weeks apart).

The entire JNB-DXB-JED has never to my knowledge been available at the same time.

I was not aware that if you do not succesfully manage to upgrade the entire outbound journey at the same time, that you get charged seperately for each sector.

Instead of costing me 42 500 miles pp (saver fare), it cost me 47500 miles pp.

Thats a 10 000 mile difference for the same upgrade.

I spoke to Skywards and they claim that the website is clear that the entire journey must be available. I have checked it over a few times, and I do not get the same sense.

I suppose it could be argued either way, but given that the upgrade was completed way before travel, and not for example done at check-in or on-board (for that specific sector) for instance, I feel quite hard done by.

In my case its a relatively small amount of miles, but given the skywards zones, I think that certain routes are heavily penalised by this and suspect that their inventory management may possibly guard against through availability.

I don't disagree with you re the earn/burn rates. I am fortunate that most of my travel is point to point (ie SIN-MEL) so I rarely have to contend with the issue you face. However, I do SIN-LHR a couple of times a year and I don't think I have ever seen upgrade availability straight thru.

At the end of the day though, I would rather the upgrades clear (even segment by segment) than not at all and be stuck down the back...

Upgrades as far as Skywards miles goes has always been high - 30,000 miles between SIN-MEL is a lot for a 7-hr flight (when it's 25,000 between LHR-DXB). And I don't understand SIN-DXB at 32,500 (when it's actually shorter than SIN-MEL) distance wise.

Most of my flying is to destinations other than DXB so I invariably face this problem whenever I upgrade using miles. What I usually do is that when the upgrade for the second leg of the onward or return opens up, I call up skywards and then they hold the previously upgraded seat for me, cancel the miles for that leg, than then upgrade the entire onward or return using a single reward - helps save a couple of thousand miles every time...

I tried that but was told that I can't do that unless there are award seats on both segments (i.e. if i cancel the miles i lose the upgrade no matter what) :(

which office did you use?

Almost always BOM...

I was always under the impression that if it was a popular J route, the mileage cost reflected that?

SIN - DXB is a very busy J route, as is SIN - MEL (or SIN - Just about anywhere, to be honest), whereas DXB - LHR is more heavily weighted towards Y (holiday makers).

This was what a Skywards CS agent once told me.

EK earn/burn is actually one of the main reasons I've stopped flying with them.

The mileage requirements are based on zone pricing, which is based on distance. So, SIN/ CGK/ KUL/ BKK all cost the same even though they are very different markets.

The reason I would imagine SIN-MEL/BNE cost less is because EK needs to be more competitive on those routes.

And LHR is actually a very premium heavy route or they wouldn't be operating multiple A380s out of it.

That hasn't been my experience. I always thought the A380s were to increase their Y capacity (as they're almost always full). The extra pax in J/F I always attributed to mileage upgrades.

Or at least, nearly all the people I've spoken to in J on the A380 have used miles to be there.

LHR is probably a slightly different case because of slot restrictions, and so the only way to build capacity is by deploying the largest available aircraft. However, if you look at the additional capacity on a 380 vs a 777, it is skewed toward higher number of J and F seats, with only about 35% more Y seats.