Hi All,

I have gone through quite a few posts and realized that upgrading on EK is becoming a more and more difficult task. I would like to fly to Tunisia (from Melbourne) soon and I have 155000 skywards points - no status. I want to buy an economy class ticket and upgrade Mel to Dxb to J and the return Dxb to Mel leg in J as well.

I'm ready to buy a flex ticket and my date of departure is roughly the first week of December and return 31st December 2013. I call the Melbourne EK office and they said there is no availability at all to get a reward upgrade in the first of December ex Melb on any of the three daily flights out? Will this change at all?

Will expert flyer be of any assistance to me?

Thanks in advance!

Having a flex ticket will help. As will an ExpertFlyer or KVS subscription.

You should be able to see how busy the flights are at the moment. If they're all booked up in J - then the chances of upgrading are obviously going to be slim.

If there's plenty of availability, then you could set up an alert for when award availability pops up.

Can someone explain this whole availability thing? EF only shows if a seat is taken or not, not if it's available for miles. Is this because I use the free version? It also doesn't know my ticket type (flex/saver) which influences upgrade availability.

I disagree with the comments ref flex ticket being beneficial.

The OP has enough miles and if an upgrade seat becomes available it's first come, first served regardless of flex/saver ticketing.

An EF subscription will give prompt notice of any availability but it could be only days ahead of travel and cannot be guaranteed.

flex and saver come from the D bucket so makes no difference except it will cost you less miles if you buy flex...

But with some savers you can only upgrade 24h before takeoff, by which time the seat could be gone.

Does EF Pro show the airfare code for available seats? Cause I can't see it (may be doing it wrong).

Thanks for all the help guys,

I'm aware what expert flyer is and it's benefits, however - is it accurate?

Also - whats KVS?

You will know this from your booking in which case there's no real point in checking much ahead of time. As you say, the seat may go.

Yes, you need to upgrade to the paid version if you would like to check 'D'/ 'Z' which is the y-J and J-F upgrade inventory for a flight+date.

Get the paid version - I believe they have a 5 or 7 day free trial....

Exactly...

Thinking outside the square, I looked availability for the OP on EF on the mentioned dates ex-MEL, SYD, ADL, BNE, and PER with +/-3 days margin. I even looked ex-AKL.

The only available combination was PER-DXB-TUN on 28-Nov, return on 30-Dec. Each with almost 12 hour stop in DXB and an awkward arrival time to PER on the way back. The upshot is the lower cost in miles for upgrading.

EK423/EK747 and EK748/EK424. But the OP needs to be quick, there's only 1 seat on the PER sectors. He can book a MEL-PER-DXB-TUN return on EK, then call to upgrade the EK sectors. Unfortunately he won't avail the chauffeur drive in MEL, nor be able to fly MEL-PER in J.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for that edy4eva, that was helpful until my boss has thrown a spanner in the works today

I will now need to fly to London to attend to some business - so I will fly to London, then take a flight Tunis, then fly Tunis back to Melbourne.

If I'm not mistaken, if you buy a saver fare now, you can only upgrade via points AFTER check in - what the hell has program sunk to?

Thanks, really helpful! Clear and concise.

Not entirely right, but not far off. There are still Saver Fares that are upgradeable in advance, only they're the more expensive fare codes.