Discovery Vitality Booking
 

Hi All,

A bit of a niche question, but I'm hoping one of my fellow South African flyertalkers can help.

With the Discovery Vitality Emirates Discount, does anyone know how much control of the booking you have after purchase?

I'm guessing it is the same as a travel agent booking, but some confirmation before I spend the cash would be helpful.

Specially I am looking to upgrade one of the legs..

Thanks!

R

Niche but surprisingly the topic of using this discount has come up relatively recently:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/emirates-skywards/1828496-booking-health-insurance-discount.html

Can't help otherwise as I haven't tried it but thanks for the reminder of the discount as I'm about to book a (possibly simple return) flight and might use it. In the past I've been booking complex itineraries which were difficult to price on the Vitality portal

Actually trying to work my way up the tiers of the Discovery vitality ranks to get the discount as well. Will report back in a couple of months if I reach my fitness goals aka getting me to the tier I need for the discount.

Oh and hello from Cape Town :D.

You've got more patience than me! I thought I go to the gym kind of regularly but still stuck on the lowest tier.

Nice to know I'm not the only one freezing my butt off here in CPT :D

OT but some tips to get some points:
- link a fitness watch to your phone so when you run (30+ min) you get 300 points
- walk 10,000 steps a day for 100 points a day
- go for the vitality health checkups at Dischem - they're free and you get 5000 points from the HIV screening alone IIRC!

I usually check the emirates website and by price, work out on what fare type they are pricing. Most likely what is available at the present time.

After you have made the booking I use the reference number they give me, find out the reference number after manage my booking on emirates.com and I have access to everything just as I would with a normal booking.

You will most likely get a flex fare which means more mile cost to upgrade

With points, health check is a great way to up the points. And it is free

I had a Discovery Vitality booking for May.
It's the same as a travel agent booking. Can't upgrade online with cash or make changes, but can upgrade with miles.
Once the first leg is flown, you can make changes/upgrade online.

Discovery
 

The tickets booked on discovery are classed as special fares below flex and saver fares.
These fares whilst being cheap earn you minimal poit's and upgrades are impossible

I've looked into these before as well and I'm not sure this is the case all the time, do you have a source that corroborates this? I think it depends on the best fare available on EK at the time and they just give a nominal percentage discount on that published fare.

Will do that and the family ( by force ) , thanks for the tip !

Well , in Hong Kong. However will be coming home soon.

Only if special or saver fares are available at the time

I flew two weeks ago and it was a flex fare on a discovery booking

Bit the bullet and booked. We are on Economy flex tickets all the way to DPS. Managed to save about R6k between the two of us in Y, so very happy!

Looks like I have full control of my booking through MMB (as if it was issued by a travel agent, so no paid upgrades.)

Now i just need to acquire 15k skyward miles between now and November so I can upgrade one of our legs!

On that note (and apologies because I'm sure this has been asked to death, but I can't find all the info in one place).

What are my different upgrade options?

• Upgrade with Miles now
• Upgrade with miles at check-in
• Upgrade cash at check-in

Any that I missed? In terms of "cost", what is generally the best option (especially if you are happy to wait and potentially not get the upgrade..)?

R

It's the same amount of miles regardless of when, if you are Silver or above you can also upgrade on board. once check-in opens it's upgrade subject to there being an available seat and this might only be confirmed at boarding, while before check-in you need specific upgrade availability which is often not available and becomes available for short periods, thus requires continuous monitoring of the availability

So was just looking more into the Discovery Vitality discount and it is actually quite a good deal along with the other perks for domestic travel as well ! However i have clocked that it seems you can not book any business class or first class tickets , it seems to only produce economy tickets for instant booking. Anyone know how to get around this or is it a matter of calling in to discovery/emirates ?

Update: Only economy tickets are valid for the discount , no J/F seats.