Emirates Award Booking - Aggravating
 

Over the past year I racked up over 800,000 EK miles. I decided I had better start using them and sending my parents to the Maldives, on a vacation, sounded like a good start.

I only needed a one-way award because I am bringing them back on one of those great ex-CMB fares.

So... Off to Expert Flyer to see what can be had in F. A=4 for the dates I wanted JFK-DXB and O=2 for the DXB-MLE leg (2-class aircraft).

As I go through the EK.com booking engine, it won't let me book any first class seats on the JFK-DXB leg, even in FLEX. After trying various things, the following day I give up and call EK and they tell me that all F inventory, FLEX or SAVER is not available, and.... comes out of the Z fare bucket. This is odd news, as FLEX F used to come out of A and SAVER F out of Z. But, now all F comes out of Z. This is a major downgrade on award redemption capabilities on EK, and is the first anybody appears to have heard of this news. J still has its own FLEX and SAVER bucket, but now FLEX F has been relegated to the SAVER F bucket. :mad:

So, I resign myself to booking the JFK-DXB in J and plan to change it to F if it opens up closer to the date of travel. I then go ahead and try to book both tickets in J, and.... nope, the DXB-MLE segment is now O=1. Argh... So, I call EK again and ask about the 2 award seats they keep for Gold members and the agent says no such thing exists.

I proceed to then book one ticket in all J for one, it is 117,500 miles. And, I book the 2nd ticket with JFK-DXB in J and DXB-MLE in Y, with the plan to bump the DXB-MLE to J as soon as more inventory opens up, that ticket ends up being 110,000 miles.

Jump to today, about a week later, and the DXB-MLE is now showing O=2. So, online I go to change the DXB-MLE to J on the one ticket. I go to "Manage Your Booking", click on "Upgrade with Miles", and the system tells me there is no availability. I go to "Change Flights", and I get the typical "Can't change online, need to call Emirates" garbage.

So, I call EK. The agent tells me there is no upgrade inventory to upgrade to. I explain that the FLEX J seat is available, I just want to switch my booking to it and pay the 7,500 difference in miles. Agent says, no way, if there are upgrade seats available you would need to pay 20,000 in miles (since it would come out of the upgrade award bucket), or if you want to pay the 7,500 difference you need to cancel the existing ticket, pay a $50 cancellation fee, and book an entirely new ticket. :confused::confused:

I ask them why does this have to be so difficult, and why do I need to pay a $50 cancellation fee on a fully FLEX ticket? Why is there no simple method to change the leg to a new class with paying the difference in miles? I try to reason with them, but after just 30 seconds I know better that this will go nowhere.

I get online, go cancel the one ticket. On the cancellation page it says I need to fill out a form to get a refund, so I click on the refund link and it goes to a dead link. So, I go to the help section to find the route to get the online form, find the form, start to fill out the form, need to enter the ticket number, PNR, passenger details, etc... After I spend 5 minutes collecting the data and entering it, I click the submit button. Then it tells me I need to call EK to pay the $50 cancel fee in order to get my miles refunded. So, I call EK, go through that entire painful process of explaining what I need done, get put on hold, guy takes my credit card info, get put on hold, etc.. etc.. and after exactly 16 minutes on the phone I have paid my $50 and gotten my miles refunded. The $24 in taxes will come back to me in about 2-3 weeks.

Now, having done all that I can go book the ticket all in J for 117,500 miles.

When F finally opens up on the JFK-DXB leg I am not sure I will have the patience to go through this again, twice, since each ticket has its own PNR.

Here is to hoping that EK makes it simpler to use miles redemptions in the future.

Wow, Kudos to you for hanging in there. I for one have given up on EK lately, not that I won't fly them, but if it doesn't work out I wouldn't go to a whole lot of trouble like you just did.

Hope it all works out for you. But what I don't get is why they try and change the inventory around and reward classes. It is now happening out of O fares here in KWI as well last I checked. Even though it is there to DXB and beyond, they won't let you book it via miles or purchase it.

This is bad. I just did try a quick look up MEL-DXB and indeed they have seemingly blocked F seats on lots of flights (it used to show F flex available all the time).


Expertflyer will need to update their interface accordingly. I can see F/A availability on any day, but on Emirates only flights that show Z (on EF) have availability now.

I thought your availability issue had been due to married segments as explained in your previous thread on this.

Is this not the case and do 1st Flex and Saver Rewards now come from the same bucket?

Yes, they all come from Z it seems.

Married segments were not the issue, a JFK-DXB itinerary would not issue any rewards in F despite A=4.

Any reward bookings on EK need to be made about 10 years in advance of the flight, from what I have experienced... and that's just full reward flights. Bumping up to higher classes using miles is virtually impossible, unless you book the upgrade about 2 years before the departure date.

EK's rewards program needs a major overhaul.

The norm has been 8 weeks to see saver seats released...

I remember the good old days where as long as there was a seat available, you could upgrade. :(

And 150% online booking bonus for F. :(

And 50% reward booking sales :(

I changed a booking recently (to LHR) about 2 weeks in advance and had my choice of Saver J and F on multiple flights...

Yes, exactly! :(

I was even a member of the kids program before Skywards was even launched called Sky Fliers - you were given a red passport like booklet which you would get to personally give to your pilot on every flight and have your journey logged with details such as flying time, miles flown, pilot's name, ect. That was so cool!



Guess by change you mean upgraded from Y? Count yourself amongst the lucky few as the process of upgrading or buying reward flights has never been more painful! :(

No, it was a date change of an existing Saver J reward. 2.5 weeks out and there were multiple flights with D class available.

Ah, right. That's usually fairly straightforward. Done that numerous times myself, often with a week before the flight. Once you're in, you're in, getting there is the issue.

This might be long shot but I think a reason for this change is the alliance with QF.
QF reward stinginess is in the house.

I don't understand this though. How can Flex and saver come out of the same bucket, what is the point in having both then??:confused:

Agreed. We need someone to talk some sense with EK. :mad: