Beware of stopover booking trick at Emirates.com
 

My first time on Emirates, booked flights for a family of four from Rio de Janeiro to Bangkok. Had plans to do a stopover in Dubai so I read carefully the stopover section on their website and there it says (update: used to say) "booking your stopover in Dubai is very simple. Once you have confirmed and paid for your Emirates flight, contact your travel agent or local Emirates office". Well, what do I understand from that? That I am supposed to book my flight, pay for it, credit card, etc, and then - only then - get back to Emirates and ask for the stopover.
Following instructions, I made contact and was very surprised to find that in order to book my stopover I would have to pay the alteration fee of $150 per passenger plus fee difference. Total of about 1000 dollars. WTH?
Called customer service here in Brazil, but it was like a joke. Asked the person to read what their website says both in english and portuguese but the reply was that "they do not have access to the Emirates website". Right.
Wrote to Emirates in Dubai and did not get a reply at first. Resent the email and got a reply quoting a different section of the website where, below the quoted instruction I pasted here, it's written that passengers are encouraged to book the stopover while purchasing their flights so as to not incur in extra fees. But the first sentence contradicts the sentence, and the first one clearly said to pay first, call later. And in my book, first things first, right?
Complained again to Emirates in writing and they again refused to budge and quoted the same area of the website, which to my great surprise (or maybe not) was rewritten.
I am pretty seriously angry at Emirates, which is supposed to be this great airline. You go and spend 5k on tickets for your family, a large part of it non-refundable, promise your sons they will see Legoland and the tallest building in the world, only to find you're being scammed to fork an extra 1k.
Anybody else had the same issue?

I've always thought some of their promo was ambiguous in this regard but to be honest to add a stopover means changing a flight and this always incurs costs. You can add a stopover while booking using multi city and it incurs no extra cost (subject to the same fare being available on the later date)

You are meant to book the flights with the stopover duration you want, then contact after booking the flights to arrange the other aspects of the stopover - hotel, car hire, excursions.

Please remember to include the total duration of your stopover in your itinerary when you purchase your flight to avoid unnecessary fees or charges.
http://www.emirates.com/english/dest...w_to_plan.aspx

So I thought, but followed instructions. They never mentioned multi city.

I just bought a ticket and read the same thing. Knowing about fares and change fees, I just booked a multi city and did my own stop over like a pp stated. I was about to call EK to ask what that meant but then decided even if it was as op interpreted - they could book us with anytime they wanted or routing. So, just did multi city.

That's what they actually mean by "contacting your travel agent or Emirates office", I later found. But they say that in a sentence that says "booking your Dubai stopover is simple, just...". To me, booking a stopover means booking a stopover, not making hotel or car reservations or whatever.

Lucky you. Stupid me followed instructions.

Actually, you missed the second paragrath which says "Please remember to include the total duration of your stopover in your itinerary when you purchase your flight to avoid unnecessary fees or charges." Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20160901...w_to_plan.aspx

The concept with the statement you read is you book your flights and then call them to see what hotels they can offer. They are not actually offering to provide you a stop over and all the hotel costs as if you were in transit and flight was delayed. Sorry but you should have read and also enquired

I am sorry- I do agree it was confusing. I used to work for a major airline in revenue management so it didn't sound like right.

I certainly would have read it provided those words had been there. As I said, the site has been since updated.

That text has been there since May 2015: https://web.archive.org/web/20150511...w_to_plan.aspx

The webpage linked above has not changed in more than a year.