Thanks. Looking into it a bit more, do they book you in a room with access to the rooftop pool?
Not sure if all guests can use it, or only those in Royal Club rooms - one rank above the Meridien Club rooms.

No, the EK rooms are in the original building. The Royal Club is a separate building with its own lounge and pool. I stay at the Le Meridien quite often, and generally get upgraded to the Royal Club as an SPG Plat. A very welcome upgrade. :)

Newbie alert! Upgrade questions
 

​​​​​​Welcome to the world of EK!

Best strategy if you don't mind paying for better seats in Economy is quite simply to pay. Alternatively monitor the seat map on something like ExpertFlyer and look at the blocked seats in the paid for areas, apart from exit rows these become freely selectable at OLCI so T-48. Bit risky but you might be able to snag one if you've got one picked out and check in as OLCI opens.

Upgrade offers are completely unpredictable and not that common, despite the frequent reporting of such on here. Best bet is pay but the fare difference will be heavy. If you had miles you could also only upgrade at check-in as it is a Saver fare which doesn't allow upgrades before check-in

Oh and absent of paying for Y seat selection of the flight isn't full the best strategy for an open middle seat is pick a window (or aisle) where the aisle (or window) is taken but middle is open, the further back the better, unless flight is full no one wants that seat. Aisle in the center section near the back also could work. Personally I always sit in rows 18-20 A or K wherever the aisle is taken and no one in the middle. Relatively decent success rate.

I haven't flown EK for a few years, and now see you have to pay for seats. Is there somewhere which shows fees and options (e.g. what options are there for extra legroom seats etc)? All I can find is a very basic FAQ article, which doesn't really help!

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Fees differ on every route. Extra legroom is essentially emergency exit or bulkhead.

So no way to see the fees and options before you book? I want to ensure I can book a bulkhead seat (am happy to pay).

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I'm afraid not, the only way might be a dummy booking but I'm not sure if seat selection happens before paying for the reservation.

You should definitely have availability on whichever flight you choose, in my experience virtually no one pays for the extra legroom seats

Thankyou. Normal building it is!

Indicative pricing only.

https://www.emirates.com/english/boo...eat-selection/

In a few weeks time, we have a booking with Emirates flying from Newcastle to Dubai in economy. There are seven of us, 4 adults and 3 children. What is Emirates policy with regard to seating us together if we don't pay to pre-book the seats. Will they separate us or give us seats together?

What age are the children? If they're under 12 each will be seated with one adult in the same reservation, as is the legal/operational requirement, AFAIK. That being said, you can monitor the seat map to see what seats are available and get a feeling for whether there are blocks of seats available, and keep in mind that you can check in online 48 hours prior to the flight at which time all seats (except exit rows) can be selected for free, you shouldn't have an issue getting a couple of sets of adjacent seats in the back at that point, set a reminder. You'd probably want two center rows of 4, trying to an empty seat in one of them, or perhaps 3 rows of 3 behind each other, with two empty middles, and hope no one takes them, if they do just switch.

Thanks for that info skywardhunter. Children are 11, 9 and 8 so hopefully we'll all be seated together. Gets a bit expensive to pre-book for seven of us on both outward and return flights. Will check in 48 hours prior to flight.

Hi all,

First of all I want to thank you for having a newbie lounge. Great initiative!

My sister wants to travel to Sri Lanka next summer with husband and kids and is really keen to fly with Emirates. However, I have noticed that splitting the trip in 2 distinct bookings with Emirates significantly reduces the costs involved (almost by 40%!): book BRU-DXB return separately from booking DXB-CMB return. I do not see an issue in the outbound trip, since it would include a night stop in Dubai with the intention to leave the airport and to sleep in a hotel. However, on the inbound flight they would only have a scheduled transfer time of 2h20m.

Prior to suggesting them to book the separate tickets I would like to assess the risks involved.

Does it often happen that there is such a significant difference by splitting a trip in 2?
How does Emirates deal with such situations regarding:
- Boarding passes: can they receive all boarding passes in Colombo already?
- Luggage: is there any chance that their luggage will travel from CMB to BRU without having to bother in DXB?
- Delays in the CMB-DXB sector. Will they be seen as no shows for the DXB-BRU sector?

Thank you in advance!

Hi Baughn and welcome to the Emirates forum.

I assume they have European (Belgian?) passports and can enter the UAE without a pre-arranged visa? That's the first question with the overnight stay that comes to mind.

how are you searching, which dates and combination of flights, are you trying to add a stopover in DXB? It's not usual for two returns originating or ending in DXB to be cheaper than a single through-fare, especially to CMB, in fact the opposite is usually the case. You would most likely (but I'm not 100% sure!) get your onward BPs in CMB, even if not you could get mobile BPs most likely, and even if not those you can OLCI and pick up BPs in DXB without going landside (follow signs for connections, there'll be EK transfer desks where you can pick up BPs). The main concern here would be delays on the first flight as there'd be no automatic protection or rebooking on the later flight. While EK is overall quite punctual in my experience recently there've been some delays because of fog. While most of the time you'd be fine, in this case trying to build a slightly longer layover may be wise, just to be on the safe side.