For many years you could search for either saver or flex tickets, your home country to Dubai return, or a Multi Sector booking.

At the point of search you would also know the Skyward Miles and Tire Miles to be rewarded.

Since the launch of the new search engine on the Emirates Website, this key information is no longer available and the choice is no longer available.

So if you advance search for multi sectors to be on the same booking, you will only be offered the cheapest fare and there is no reference to skyward miles or tire miles to be rewarded.

As a frequent flyer with Emirates, I book all my flights via the Emirates Website, selecting all different options at the time of booking.

I telephoned today Emirates and was told now if you want to make multi sector bookings with the choice of Flex or Flex Plus, it is not possible on the Emirates Website, I must call the local office to make the booking over the telephone.

So the local office is closed when I normally make my bookings, late at night once I arrive at my hotel, this means I need to call Dubai to make my multi sector flex or flex plus booking ?

Why can this not be offered on the Emirates Website for Online bookings ?

I know they need to add this in. Its very annoying not to be able to choose what type of ticket on multi sector search... hope they come out with it soon!

As soon as EK expects me to call a call centre or visit a sales office, I just move my business to another carrier. Is a shame. I would be gold at present if I did all flying on EK but sometimes they just make it too difficult so I fly on other carriers Given where I am based, there is no way on earth I would consider visiting my nearest EK office. I also don't phone foreign call centres unless charged local rates.

Not only this, but only a couple of days ago I had to buy tickets on two specific flight numbers. Both sectors had availability but not together on the website or mobile site (even though other combinations had availability on the required sectors on the sites!). Luckily I was at an airport with an EK ticket office which was able to create the itinerary for me (they also thought that was extremely strange), but it was quite inconvenient, especially as I was charged in local currency, not originating city currency!

They must fix this soon - did you write in to Customer Affairs to prod them into sending feedback to IT?

As a note about call centres being closed - as a Platinum member, I advise you in calling either the UK call center using the 03 number via Skype or other cheap method (or another 24 hour center), as it is never closed and you will automatically be redirected to the DXB based Platinum line in any case.

So how long does it take the world's leading airline to fix their online booking engine? It is a shame that multi-city bookings still do not allow the choice of booking class.

Also, as the previous poster mentioned, EK is now increasingly playing the game of married segments and "POS restrictions" (whatever they mean with this, since changing the POS in many cases does not resolve the issue). My travel agent has now called EK to complain about the fact that visible availability on some routes has nothing to do anymore with seats available for ticketing.

It's actually not a POS problem it is a origin/destination "problem" with the availability (i.e if you check JFK-DEL the flight is maybe full but if you check JFK-DXB the flight/booking class is only half full, because they earn a lot more money on a JFKDXB ticket)

Not sure about the multicity option - guess this is not something they will fix because they want that you buy "the fare they want"

EKs IT and back office is just horrible - god knows how they manage to sell Mercator systems!

They still haven't coded their updated Skywards earning rates properly - just today you can earn more miles on an F Flex UK-CHC than an F Flex Plus, even though it's meant to be identical...

About married segments etc. on EK, it's not new or increasing, it's always been core to EKs operations - I think now it's just more visible given the higher loads in parts of the network and the asymmetry of demand between certain regions east and west of DXB. This is especially true ex-UK given the massive O&D demand to DXB between those markets.

I am aware of the married segment capacity management of EK, have learnt to deal with it. But recently (last couple of weeks) I have had several bookings where married segment rules suddenly applied to bookings with long stopovers in Dubai (where, in the past, the individual segments were always available according to single segment capacity rules as long as there was no married segment within 24 hours). Now, it looks like they regard segments as married even if there are multiple days inbetween them - with the consequence that it is impossible to say if there will be seats available if you want to change such a segment.

Case in point: I want to book RUH-DXB-DUS vv. with segment 1 flown today and segment 2 flown in three weeks. In the past, capacity on these segments followed single segment availability (and not married segment). Now that has changed. R-class seats are available on both flights, but fare engine is not picking them up but only offering Y-class. EK explains this with "POS restrictions" (quote). The R-class fare rules do not have any POS restrictions listed, and this routing has priced as R-class consistently over the last 2 years when booked in a similar fashion.

Anybody else had a similar experience lately?

Had something similar with regards to strange availability constraints and visibility - not exactly your issue but I think there are similarities:

I was trying to book LHR-BKK whilst in BKK on very short notice. I needed a specific schedule but on the main website it wasn't showing any availability in Y, not even last seat in full Y class. However, then I tried the mobile app and whilst my specific combination of flights BKK-DXB and DXB-LHR weren't available in conjunction, each of those flights were available separately in conjunction with other connecting flights (so I wanted EK385 and EK1, which showed as sold out, but EK385 connecting to EK15 was available and EK419 to EK1 was also for sale).

I was at BKK anyway so I went to the ticket office at the airport, showed them the discrepancy on the app, which they said was strange too, and they were able to ticket LHR-BKK-LHR no problem at all. It turned out it wasn't even Y class, just E class.

I know it's inconvenient but have you been to a ticket office to see if they can force it through? I think the website booking engine has all sorts of edge case bugs they haven't tested properly...