Seat guarantee benefit for Gold members
 

I recently received an email from Skywards which claims to be describing an enhancement to the "seat guarantee" benefit for Gold members.

The core of this "enhancement" is as follows:
"From 15th August 2014, you will no longer have to wait for a flight to be full to book a guaranteed Economy Class seat. We will now confirm your seat when the cabin is full."

I cannot see how this is an enhancement. If you do not "have to wait for a flight to be full to book a guaranteed Economy Class seat" where's the benefit, as anyone, Skywards Gold or not, can book an Economy seat on a flight which is not full in that cabin?! Why would anyone wait for Economy to be full before booking if he/she could book earlier?

I am genuinely puzzled by this email. Does it mean that, for example, if you want a J ticket but that J and Y (but not F) are full (and therefore the flight is not full), you are now guaranteed a Y seat, whereas previously you weren't?

Am I missing something here?

It makes a big difference

Under the current rules, the gold guarantee can only be used when the aeroplane is completely sold out. e.g. if there is 1 seat available in F, but none in economy or business or discount 1st , the benefit can not be used; the customer will need to buy a 1st class ticket ( or of course book on another flight/airline )

With this change, from how I read it, the gold benefit for a guaranteed economy seat can now be used whenever economy is sold out; it doesnt require business and 1st to be sold out too

Did not understand the statement either, thanks Dave maybe you should write for Emirates at least we would then know what they are talking about.

Dave Nobles post is very clear.

Old rules: The aircraft should be sold out in all cabins ( F,J,Y) before you can ask for a Y guaranteed seat.


New rule: You can ask for the Y guaranteed seat (if Y is sold out)even if there are seats available in F,J.

Many thanks for explaining this.

Seat guarantee benefit for Gold members
 

The other difference is that now you require a full fare ticket vs only a flex ticket previously. I did use that once at Christmas and was very helpful at that time

What's full fare vs flex mean?

I would have said booking class Y
Otherwise they would have specified flex ticket

"Just call our Contact Centre at least 48 hours before your flight and make sure you purchase a full fare ticket. If you’ve booked a ticket that’s not eligible, we can help you upgrade your fare over the phone. "

Sounds like this "enhancement" might possibly benefit Emirates', then. It can offload a passenger on a discounted economy ticket having sold his or her seat at top dollar to a Gold member.

I'd be interested to know how Emirates' chooses who to offload. If it requests volunteers in return for compensation (and, perhaps, accommodation) it could be win-win-win (the airline/upgraded pax/offloaded pax). On the other hand, if some poor soul is simply denied boarding, I would regard taking his or her seat as morally dubious and doing so would make me feel very uncomfortable indeed.

I don't think that you will ever be able to fly then!!!!. EK and all other airlines oversell and offload pax all the time. Having some status with the airline protects against this to a certain extent.

AFAIK EK oversells all cabins except F.

I doubt if I have ever flown as a direct result of someone else not, in the way Emirates' guaranteed seat might work, and certainly not knowingly. (And that's the point: you'd know that Y was full* before invoking the "guaranteed seat".) Nearly all my short haul flights are with easyJet and Ryanair (who, to my knowledge, do not oversell); all my flying on Emirates' is in First.

I cannot stop an airline overselling but it is within my power not to choose to avail myself of the "guaranteed seat" benefit.

Furthermore, I think there is a difference between someone who is denied boarding because he or she has checked in just at the minimum time and someone who is not allowed to fly because I have taken their seat 48 hours before departure.

If, on the other hand, an airline seeks volunteers and offers compensation, there may well be passengers who would jump at the chance. How Emirates' chooses who to offload makes, to me at least, a difference to an evaluation of the "guaranteed seat" benefit.

Lastly, ukdoctor, how would you feel if you were offloaded from First because some government minister or royalty wanted your seat? Would that be okay because it was deemed to be a perk of their status (which is probably how they would see it)?

* As this obviously fails to take into account no-shows, I do accept a Y cabin which is full might nonetheless still depart with empty seats even if one was to take advantage of the seat guarantee. My point would be one cannot know this in advance.

Platinum Seat Guarantee
 

I got a similar e-mail. As far as I can tell, the only enhancement over the Gold Guarantee is the possibility that it could also extend to Business Class. Here is the e-mail:

As an Emirates Skywards Platinum member your travel flexibility is very important to us. To provide better access to your preferred class of travel, we have enhanced your seat guarantee benefit.

From 15th August 2014, you will no longer have to wait for a flight to be full to book a guaranteed seat. We will now confirm your Business Class or Economy Class seat when the cabin is full.

You will always be guaranteed an Economy Class seat whenever you want to travel, even if you don’t already hold a ticket. Also, we will of course do our very best to confirm a seat in Business Class, but during major holidays and special events this may not be possible on some flights. Whenever we can, we’ll update our website in advance.

Just call our Contact Centre at least 48 hours before your flight and make sure you purchase a full fare ticket. If you’ve booked a ticket that’s not eligible, we can help you upgrade your fare over the phone.

If you're invoking the full flight guarantee, you'll probably:

1) get an op-up and 2) if someone is going to get offloaded, it's probably the staff travel. If a revenue pax gets offloaded, they will get a free ticket and a rebooking and accommodation - however, if a controller or station manager sees his or her flight is at risk of having to offload revenue passengers, they will have already told the check-in staff to ask for volunteers (non-skywards members usually), who will receive various offers of compensation (usually a free ticket, sometimes roundtrip, depending on desperation!).

I think it would only be morally dubious in exceptional cases (e.g. Fukushima meltdown).

If you apply Seat 64 A's logic then you are offloading someone from Y even if you buy the last available F ticket on a flight which is full in J and Y. If a flight is full in Y then that usually means its already oversold . If you hadn't bought the F ticket then EK could have moved someone from J to F and another pax could be moved from Y to J thereby creating a space in Y for the poor soul who had to be offloaded.

Its all a bit like the butterfly effect at the end of the day.

EK routinely oversell , Ryanair and Easyjet don't do it as they are EU based and have to face stiff penalties.

The low cost airlines didn't oversell even prior to EU261/2004 - it's just not in their business model.