Upgrading flights on a multi leg ticket
 

Hi, hope you can answer my query, I am looking to book a lhr-bkk-hkg-dxb-lhr return business saver ticket, am looking to upgrade the hkg-dxb-lhr part to first with miles, if I add a stopover in dubai for a few days will the upgrade price stay the same as a straight through upgrade or will the cost go up as each flights are treated separately.
I appreciate your thoughts and answers

Hm.. very interesting question. I suspect you need to pay the individual segment prices rather than combined as with a stop >24h it's no longer 1 segment/transit

If you try and do it online it will be treated as two separate upgrades. Suggest you call EK and see whether they can process it over the phone at the reduced through rate and let us know the result.

If you can get availability and it's one ticket you should get the reduced rate.

I must admit whenever I try and do this one of the legs let's me down every time.

Thanks for your views guys, at first I thought it could be done as a straight through ticket and therefore at the lesser rate of miles needed to redeem but the more I thought about it the more it seemed more likely it would be treated as separate legs, I'm pretty sure I did this a few years ago but for the life of me can't remember what the outcome was.

Just to pitch in, I recently flew SYD-DXB-GLA with 25h in Dubai seeing a mate. When trying to upgrade using miles I was not offered the reduced upgrade fee for combining both legs as it was treated as two separate tickets. On my return home to SYD, I had a 17h stopover and was able to upgrade at the reduced rate as it was one ticket.

If its one ticket it will be treated at the combined rate (if you can get availability)

With over 24h in DXB? I doubt it. It's not longer 1 segment then.

This is also my experience.

Many thanks again for your insight guys, decided to amend plans and booked a straight through ticket from Singapore back to London via Dubai and used my expiring miles to upgrade for 2 first class seats, didn't want the hassle of phoning emirates up, will take the missus back to visit Dubai another time when not needing to redeem to upgrade ;)^

Something that crossed my mind, I wonder if you can now add a stopover by postponing the DXB-LHR flight by a day or two, but remaining in the upgraded class of service, paying just the change fee and fare difference (of which ideally there would be none). I presume there would need to be upgrade availability on the postponed flight, too, so that you stay in the same fare bucket...