Hya!
Recently I flew once more and as I had some miles, booked entire trip in Flex and Flex+ looking forward to upgrade.
Itinerary was LIS-DXB-HKG and then HKG-DXB-LIS.
Outbounding there was no reward seats available out of LIS, so only got availability for DXB-HKG. No problem regarding this.
Inbounding I got reward seats available around 10 days before travel for DXB-LIS leg. Did the upgrade with miles. 2 days before flight I got availability and did upgrade again.
The problem is: the upgrade HKG-LIS uses less 21450 miles than the upgrade HKG-DXB + DXB-LIS. In fact I used miles to upgrade both legs. In fact I did it for 2 times and not at once. But as far as the call center informs me, the miles used should be less than the miles indeed used.
For 3 times I called and for 3 times they did the report and complaint to DXB operations to get miles back, but neither attempts gave any result.
Any recommendation? What should I do?
In one hand 21450 miles are an important amount I can use for upgrades. In the other hand, the lack of reward seats makes the miles not so relevant no matter the amount of it....

You have to call them to process the through upgrade to get a refund before you've flown.

Well...I did the upgrade 2 days before I flew at EK office in HK...
I did call 4 times to explain and for 4 times I was told the situation was being addressed. The lat call generated an email. 2 days after I received an email saying They would reply in 2 days. 4 days after.....nothing.
I believe this is going accordingly my thought Skyward miles are loosing value for 2 reasons:
1 - The difficult it is to find reward seats even on empty flights (before check in, accessing CD and with peace of mind that one is having a tranquil flight)
2 - The easy it is to spend more miles that needed due to the fact that with a feeding over feeding network won't assure you an upgrade for a ticket but for a sector of a ticket.
Any thoughts?

It seems like you've based your thoughts on one trip - that doesn't mean it's true across the board.

However, Emirates would much rather sell seats for cash rather than miles, so it's not surprising that availability is restricted. Miles that expire is good news for the arline.

I agree that Skywards is a pretty poor program in terms of earn/burn etc., but I do like the instant upgrade feature.

You stated in another thread that you were Gold - I have never had a problem with asking at the lounge or check-in for a space-available upgrade: sometimes they make me wait until the boarding, but usually someone finds me in the lounge with a new boarding pass.

Also, on board if there is space and the controller isn't taking calls, and lounge staff can tell me if the flight is full in J/F or not.

I don't think the "peace of mind" of getting it confirmed before is worth getting angry about: that is more of a waste of my time arguing for it when I know I can pretty much get it anyway.

I don't care about the chauffeur drive that you don't get if you upgrade on site - that may be a factor for others.