I got on :)

I arrived at check-in just as they were closing, and by some miracle there were still three empty seats. I took one of them. Just to remind everyone Y cabin was 22 seats oversold just yesterday.

J was now full, but they kept F completely empty. So not sure what happened behind the scenes (too much Super Bock the night before, perhaps?) but it worked out nicely for me.

Interestingly I spoke to an off-duty EK cabin crew, who was on standby just in front of me, and they mentioned that they never Op-up pax from J-F.

AS FOR THE TRIP REVIEW! this was the first time I've flown EK Economy Class (or any class of travel) for three years.

On boarding, I felt the crew were not particularly welcoming, compared to my experience with other Gulf carriers, and they seemed to be a bit all-over-the-place.

However, I did end up having a short conversation with two of the crew, and found them to be very nice on a 1-to-1 level.

I'm not a fan of the EK uniforms - specifically the male uniform. Seems a bit off-duty office worker to me.

The seat on this 777 was narrow, but acceptable considering the lady next to me was slender and didn't even seem to want the arm rest! I was on the aisle near the front of the cabin.

The food was very good. I think they were possibly rolling out a new meal service, as when I ordered my post-take off G&T, the FA suggested I take a double, as the meal service trolly wouldn't contain any spirits. Good suggestion! Shame there was no lemon slice though.

The white wine was in a glass bottle, which seemed odd in an age of cost cutting and weight reduction.

We rang in new year somewhere over Bahrain - the cabin crew wished us HNY in all of their various spoken languages. A nice touch, but sadly no champagne was passed round.

Landed in DXB around 1.15am, and had a horrible long bus journey back to the terminal.

I won't bore you with the rest. Overall, a good experience on EK! And renewed optimism for travelling stand-by!

My destination is the UAE. London had a lot of capacity on this day so was my best bet, and there are many flights from LIS to LHR.

:p well at least there was a happy ending.

Thanks to all that helped in this thread. Specifically @skywardhunter and @eternaltransit^

Not true, it does happen, but I think they'd be reluctant to do it to accommodate a Y pax in J, however if J were oversold they would, in fact I had a J-F op-up earlier this year.

The food trolley generally doesn't contain drinks IIRC, and what would the wine be served in if not a glass bottle? A box? :D

Glad you made it, and got an aisle, too which is nice! Bad luck with the bus gate, these days they're not as common as they were a few years ago still. As for the crew, that seems to be more and more the case (not very friendly/welcoming) based on recent reports.

They do upgrade j to F but only if they have to.

No problem - the staff load check can actually be a bit misleading because EK have another tool which shows revenue management's actual forecast loads which has to be read in conjunction with the load apps if you want to be more accurate with getting on or not...

But I think you're right, there may have been quite a few no-shows from a late night :D:D

OP flew on 31st, people drink much the day before they plan to drink much?

Err, it was a late night, I don't know what day it is :D

Load Check please
 

Please can someone check the load for the following flights. Thank you in advance.

EK 704 7 January 2017
EK 029 8 January 2017

FYI load is not visible to EK staff until 3 days prior, and not visible at all to non-staff

I got from DXB-BLR... And got asked if I was one of the cricketers (the SA team were on board) :)

Load Factor Please
 

Hya!
I'm planning last minute on duty trip and most probably will seek upgrading Y-J with some miles. Eventually will make use of Gold status to get guaranteed seat in Y Flex+ on Y and then use miles to J.

One of you with access to EF can please report load factor on:

10JAN - EK192
11JAN - EK382
19JAN - EK381
20JAN - EK191

Many thanks for the help!
SDC

Hi There,

I'll be happy to help bu EF doesn't take flight numbers. departing and arriving airports please.

Also EF does not provide loads, EF provides availability by fare bucket for purchase, which does not correspond to actual load due to over- and underselling, it is merely an indication.

Lastly you only need to use Gold Status for a guaranteed seat if the flight is sold out, you can purchase a Flex+ the regular way for any flight with availability, which is often quite possible. Also a regular Flex+ from the website may indeed be cheaper than a Gold guarantee seat as the Gold guarantee books into Y, the most expensive fare bucket, while I believe Flex+ has a total of 2 or 3 fare buckets, some of which are discounted vs Y.

Second lastly, there've been a lot of load check requests popping up on here recently, if this is going to become a thing perhaps we need a dedicated thread for it, or even better, let's not make it a thing. Looking up EF loads is still straightforward and a thread for that I think would make sense, but when it gets to requesting the actual loads from EK internally it becomes trickier, perhaps I contributed to that though when I posted loads on the other thread here a few days ago. Those loads are only available <72h before to EK staff and thus not easy to get access to.

One more thing, as a grammar nazi... load factor generally refers to a load in G placed on an object, either positive or negative (e.g. a load of +4G, 4x earth's gravitational force) ;)

Redemption to forum overlord
 

Copy that.

Can anyone check fare availability for any of those flights, please?

10JAN - EK192 (LISDXB)
11JAN - EK382 (DXBHKG)
19JAN - EK381 (HKGDXB)
20JAN - EK191 (DXBLIS)

EK web shows only Y Flex and Y Flex+ on Lisbon departure. All flights do not show J Saver at all.
My intention is to check possibility of miles upgrade until, during or even after check in before I send my business to Y+ or J on another company saving my miles for next trip.

But hey, if it is too much trouble, just ignore this request.
Thanks a mill.

EK192 J4 C4 I4 O0 P0 Y3 E3 R3 W3 M0 B0 U0 K0 H0 Q0 L0 T0 V0 X0
EK382 F4 A4 J7 C7 I7 O0 P0 Y9 E9 R9 W9 M9 B9 U9 K9 H0 Q9 L9 T9 V0 X0
EK381 F4 A4 J7 C7 I7 O0 P0 Y9 E9 R9 W9 M9 B9 U9 K9 H0 Q9 L9 T9 V0 X0
EK191 F4 A4 J7 C7 I7 O7 P0 Y9 E9 R9 W9 M9 B9 U9 K9 H9 Q9 L9 T9 V0 X0

No need for the attitude, you asked for a favour from someone who pays for this kind of data, I simply requested the minimum info required for EF to find the flight.

The other comments were addressed in general and not specifically to you. However feel free to pay the 10$ a month yourself in future if you'd like to avoid dealing with the forum overlords.

For future reference, you can just call up EK and check if there is upgrade availability on your desired flights before booking. Much faster and simpler, especially if you don't have an EF membership.

I definitely would do as HKPrince mentions, and not rely on EF for upgrade availability if that was your intention. Also note that Flex+ isn't any more likely to have upgrade availability than Flex or Saver, it's just cheaper to upgrade (well and Saver can't be upgraded before check-in).

There is a thread somewhere... however, it's not been used for a while.

Personally, I think these requests should not be allowed. EF/KVS offer a very reasonably priced service, with a free trial. These requests are akin to a neighbour asking if they can hook into your WiFi as they don't want to pay. Or (more relevantly), people asking you to get them Champagne when you've paid for a Friday Brunch, and they've gone for the soft drinks option :p

#DubaiProblems

On a side note, does anyone know what is up with the 'H' fare buckets? They always seem to be inconsistent with the rest of the data. For example, on some flights all classes except Y, E and R are zeroed out. But H remains displaying 9. Is there a reason for this?

H is for EK Holiday bookings

Ah, that explains it!

EF seems to have improved in terms of reliability in identiying upgrade / award availability at least a little way ahead of the flights. It's less useful however in the 24-72 hours before a flight when aspects of management are passed to local teams (and no I don't know exactly what and when! ;) )

Thanks
 

Just a line to thank Skywardhunter for the info. You're a star. I Will sign up for EF to avoid this embarassments in the future.

I lost available Y Seats on sale for the first outbound flight. So I need to call them for the Gold benefit anyway.... most likely I will buy the ticket over the phone.

I will post op-up experience if it happens (hope so - for more than 2 year I only turn right on boarding for short haul, now it's time to spend some miles).

Again, thanks a million.

You're welcome, and we're always happy to help here.

As for the Gold guarantee, best of luck, I've tried to use it in the past but it prices out ridiculously high as its full-fare Y (so often even higher than the Flex Plus price shown on the website, as already mentioned), in my case it was going to cost as much for return Y using the guarantee as one-way J and back Y both in Flex on a regular day. BUT you will literally be at the top of the list for op-ups so hopefully that'd work out!

(eternaltransit shared this nugget of wisdom with us recently, that within Flex Plus its further ranked by status and then fare bucket)

The problem in using the seat guarantee is that it's usually so full that J (or F) is 100% and there are no op-ups - all that's happened is someone (usually STF confirmed) has been IDB.

At least, all the times I used it in 2016 - no luck!

sorry that I am cherry-picking, but it's a Y-Class fare you have to pay and not a full fare (still expensive, sometimes more than a O Class fare, but have never seen Economy closed and O/I open...). Most of the time higher than the shown Flex+ Fare on the homepage, as there are different booking classes for Flex+ (for most routings R,E,Y). :):D

:confused::confused: What do you define as a full fare? By full-fare Y I mean it's the Y fare bucket, which is the most expensive fare in Economy, typically, vs the other fare buckets that are generally considered discounted off Y

IATA YY for economy cabin, presumably

Hm true, hadn't considered that, but that's not airline specific and EK doesn't publish that fare, IATA does

Well if we want to be really technical, IATA generates -files - the fare, but the tariff is calculated based on input from EK over routes they operate, and is published by ATPCO :)

:D sometimes I don't believe you when you say you work in hospitality...

So on a LHR-JFK they take fares of all the 97 airlines (made up figure, I know it's probably not 97!) that operate that route and work it out from there?

Yes, but remember that on LHR-JFK there are the anti-trust JVs so there are only a few airlines.

Also, some airlines refuse to accept YY fares on some routes - it's only really used these days for two reasons, creating a benchmark for concessionary travel and for routes where a carrier doesn't want to bother generating a fare.

Basically for every route, a carrier decides whether to participate or not.

quite a bit off topic but:
the full fares are public (okay not on the homepage but in Amadeus etc, filed with 7 in the end for EK eg ...AE7. It's a bit a 'fake full fare' as normally - as et explained - there are full fares from iata (iirc yif in Y, cif in J and fif in F), where you can combine nearly every airline with each other and with any routing (there are some limitations...). *geek mode off* :cool:

edit: lot already mentioned above... :o jetlaged sorry...

Guaranteed Seat for Gold
 

hummm.....as far as I noticed, it is possible to buy a Flex+ fare for any day and then ask to change for your preferred day without price variation (flex+ = no Penalty). Nevertheless it is not guaranteed, not at all. One might end up with a ticket on EK to travel on a specific date with need to travel on another date, compatible or not with refund process time.....tricky. As the miles upgrades are tricky as almost never one can find reward seats on the routes were the miles are honestly earned. Lots of tricky things on skyward program, or at least on both major benefits of clocking miles in any airline: upgrades and guaranteed seats (lounge access and extra luggage comes with status not miles quantities). I truly believe the miles Stock was so great on client side, they invented this "spend your miles and reduce the cost of your ticket" to cover the fact that the miles have no value for a frequent traveler that find no practical use for them when really needs.

no change fee but a (sometimes) heavy fare difference as there are different booking classes 'within' flex plus. Nevermind if you take the seat guarantee you have to pay a Y class fare anyway so no fare difference

Flex Plus means you can change for free, paying the fare difference. There's no cost for the process of changing itself, unlike Flex and Saver fares where on top of the difference in fare and taxes you also have to pay a change fee.

Upgrade availability has no link to whether you buy Flex or Flex Plus, Flex Plus just makes upgrading cheaper in terms of miles (and cash usually) cost. It is frustrating not finding availability but if one monitors closely generally something opens up at some point. So far I've always been able to spend my miles on upgrades or award tickets and usually have too few miles for an upgrade as when I have enough I use them. Just getting back into the region of having enough for another upgrade (at 35k now, will hit 42k in 2 weeks)

Done. Booked through TA on outbound in Y and U on inbound. Checked Auto Upgrade option and no avail for now, excepting last inbound flight (dxblis) that is now upgraded.
Anyone have experience in miles upgrade at check in or onboard?
Shall I uncheck auto-upgrade and wait for op-up? Will op-up happen despite the auto check in option?
Appreciate your experienced feedback.

Op-ups take place even when there is no upgrade availability, the one will not affect the other. At check-in or onboard you can upgrade based on space available and do not depend on upgrade availability, so this may be an option if you are unable to upgrade in advance.

If the leg into DXB on the return becomes available you can call EK (or in this case you'd probably need to deal with the TA) do process the upgrade for the difference in miles for the entire segment upgrade vs paying the cost of two one ways (individual upgrades of AAA-DXB + DXB-BBB is higher than AAA-BBB via DXB as a single upgrade, EK call centre can reverse the earlier upgade, hold the inventory and process the entire upgrade for the lower combined cost).