Hi all,

I'm definitely not a "frequent flier" so wanted to seek some advice before buy any tickets through Emirates.

I'm due to work for a short period in Sydney next year, and will be returning to the UK via Bali.

I had 2 main questions:

1) What is the Emirates "Featured Fare"? It says this offer is due to run out on my flights in about 27h, and I'm wondering if I need to rush my purchase because of this. Currently ~�580 for an Economy Saver flight from LHR-SYD and then Bali-LHR, which seems pretty reasonable? Any idea what it could jump to?

2) Are there any pros/cons to buying through Emirates directly? The ticket prices are pretty equivocal on Emirates vs other sites like Expedia etc, so I'm wondering if the extra "legitimacy" of booking through the official page would make it easier to deal with any hiccups?

Sorry for the list of questions! Would be very appreciative of any help you all can offer

Hi h1992

Welcome to the Emirates board. One of the main reasons for buying tickets directly with the airline which is talked about often through Flyertalk is that if there are any irrops, changes needing done, etc. then you can deal directly with the airline. A lot of people have reported that in these cases, if booked via OTA or TA, then the airline will not deal with you and you have to deal with whoever you booked your tickets with which as has been reported on FT can be very difficualt at times dependant on who the ticket was booked with.

Unless you use a trusted and competent OTA/TA to book your tickets, you would be better booking via EK and then you will only be dealing with EK. On the attached link from a current thread on the forum from post #5 onwards gives you an idea of the better UK OTA/TA's to use by one of the regular FTer's.http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/emira...-possible.html

Also another thing to keep in mind is that airline ticket pricing is dynamic and does go down as well as up. If you are happy with the price at the time, then my genereal view is to book it (and don't go back looking ).

Edit to add: And sign up for a Skywards membership. Although you start at the bottom, it will cost nothing, do no harm and can help in cases of overbooking and reduces chances of getting bumped from flights

Hope this is of some use.

Safe & Happy Travels

S

My advice, for what it is worth, is to always book direct with the airline.

I can see no reason for using a third party unless you have a particularly complicated itinerary.

I do it via my bank account "extras" of which one of them is 10% off published air fares - and in most cases it is 10% cheaper than EK direct.
So in F bookings, esp long haul, it is not an insignificant amount.

Might be worth thinking about.

No, it's just there to tease you.


A third party may be significantly cheaper.

Or if you want increased flexibility.

Thanks for the helpful replies so far! Definitely happy with the price I'd be paying at the moment so might go ahead and get them. Good 40% cheaper than my return to Australia last summer, so can't complain.

Only remaining issue is that the Economy Saver doesn't let you pick your seats until online check-in opens. My better half is booking a different set of flights with the aim of returning on the same flight from Bali as myself. How (un)likely is it that we'd be able to get seats next to each other if we booked separately? I'm reluctant to pay for Economy Flex as it's a good �300 more expensive than Saver is, plus I tend to sleep all the time on flights anyway...

HSBC?

I've never seen these offers apply to F...Y and J yes, never F.

If you have a discount code for F, PM me!

RBS - Black A/C

2xF MUC-AKL return (Dec/Jan) got 1000GBP off total!

Being unable to select seats is a new development and there isn't too much known about it yet, however my gut feeling is that since you can select at check-in, 48h before the flight you're likely going to able to pick two together.

Really? I didn't realise that RBS Black offered discounts on travel, I may look into that if you can score a decent discount in F as it will be worth it after a year.

My parents are NatWest private banked i,will check with them!