I am currently awaiting to connect onto the last leg of an Emirates itinerary that has had me flying LGW-BKK-SYD-DXB-GVA.

My flight from SYD-DXB was meant to have departed 2 days ago but was cancelled due to weather in SYD.

I departed SYD last night and am now in DXB awaiting my ongoing connection to GVA. Obviously everything is 24 hours later than my original booking.

I have been booked in business on the entire itinerary but today's DXB-GVA is overbooked in business (although has one free seat in first class). Emirates has for the moment downgraded me to Economy and expressed "hope" that I can be seated in business at the last moment.

Obviously if I end up seated in business I am fine. However if I am not (and I am not given the one remaining first seat if available) I would like to know what has been the experience with travellers here regarding Emirate's approach to downgrade compensation. I believe I should be entitled to the cost difference between the business ticket and an economy fare, or (if they were to model compensation on EU261) 75% of the business fare for the leg concerned. Also interested to hear if people find Emirates offering travel vouchers as compensation.

Thanks for your thoughts and experiences,

Dave M

They typically do that if you are 'offloaded' - a return ticket in your original class of travel. Not sure about a downgrade.

You won't get the F seat. That flight will go full in J and F unless there are a lot of missed connections - there are a high number of HNW individuals and Golds and Plats too. I woulnd't hold your breath! I had to fly GVA DXB in Y this year too!

As for compensation, this is an unusual situation, they should have found a seat for you but it is a force majeure event ie outside of EK's control. I wouldn't rely on getting anything from them after you take the flight - they fight claims hard. Best to negotiate now - perhaps a free flight in original class of travel? That as JD said is only given when you are "offloaded".

Good luck!

Some airlines have a nasty way of calculating downgrade compensation by breaking the fare and/or using the coach fare being sold that day, often full Y even when the ticket was purchased far in advance, so that you get very little cash back.

Although certainly different to your situation, I was downgraded from F to J because they swapped out a 2-class plane from the 3-class plane I was booked on. When I contacted them about compensation for this they told me I was entitled to exactly $0.

Not surprised!

In such situations the only viable thing would be compensated with enough miles for a one way upgrade and a certain monetary pay out.

If they don't offer anything, file a case with Money Claim Online. Even though it's not covered by EU261, you still have a strong case against EK.

You're lucky they didn't recalculate the fare from discount F to full fare J and ask you to pay extra!

I have had exactly the same situation on a couple of occasions and have got refunded the difference between F&J for the downgraded leg. I did it online via the flight cancellation/refund option and requested refund due to downgrade and got compensation both times this happened.

Maybe you need to cut out the human middleman and go straight online to request the refund.

Trotski

Thank you for your replies everyone.

As it turns out Emirates came through with a seat in J, so I have no need to take this any further. Thank you for your collective wisdom however - always helps to be that much better prepared for unforeseen issues like this in the future.

One thing I will say is the Emirates staff in the business lounge in SYD handled communication about the flight cancellation very well and were very thorough about working through personalized arrangements for their clients.

Best wishes,

Dave M