Waiving change fee for an upgrade?
 

Hi,

I currently have an Emirates round trip for 2 people booked from EWR to ATH... the first leg of the trip is a business class flight, but the return flight is an Economy seat. Emirates just announced a business class sale for this flight, and it wouldn't cost that much more to upgrade to business class based on the fare difference... here is the issue... they want to charge me $800 extra ($400 per person for a "ticket change") to upgrade on the website. If I call Emirates customer support, do you think there is any possibility they'll waive that fee considering I'm staying on the exact same flight, and the only difference is I'm upgrading my seat? Seems a little silly to charge a fee for that...

-Jon

I mean... I was notified about the sale via an Emirates email... but it's not a special offer (meaning it's available to anyone I believe and also shows up in google flights)...

-Jon

Call them - fee should be waived. Done this recently with a J to F change. Was quoted the fare difference and then told "there is a change fee ... we obviously waive that".

It's a well known issue that we website doesn't waive the fee while the fare rules indicate that they should be

I have wasted money not calling in the past. Thank you for the new knowledge.

If it's not too long in the past I'd try at least get some miles out of EK as they really should fix this. The below appear in virtually all EK fares' rules:

As a data point I just called Emirates and they upgraded the tickets to business class and waived the $800 change fee. So the per ticket upgrade cost was about $500 for each ticket. Not bad for international business class! The customer service person was very pleasant for the most part... I only say that because I see a lot of complaints on here about their customer service. They did right by me today.

In my experience the EK call centre is world class. Friendly, helpful, competent and soon after calling you get put through to a human.

I couldn't agree more - EK call centre staff, both here in NZ and overseas, have always been extremely helpful whenever I've called through to them with a query or issue. Status probably helps a wee bit I'm sure, but they're every bit as good as Air NZ and much better than QF in my experience.

As already mentioned by other posters, the change fee generally does not apply (obviously depends on fare rules) if upgraded to a higher cabin on the same flight and date, but when done online the system does not recognize this. However, you also have to be careful on the fare differences online. On several occasions I got a much higher fare online then applicable under the fare rules (the most extreme example being a fare difference of over GBP 1200, when all that should have been applied was a GBP 100 change fee; got it sorted through the call center). As a result I always check the online fare quote against the actual fare rules, and go through the call center when the two do not add up to me. It is simply pathetic that EK cannot get the online tool to properly reflect the rules!

I'm not sure. I'd think they'd try charge it but that you'd have a somewhat good argument for it to be waived. The issue is thay it's basically two transactions:

- change date then upgrade subject to the right J fare bucket being available
- upgrade then change date subject to the exact same fare being available

They can do it all as one but it would probably be seen as two actions and one of those attracts a fee.

Yes, that is sort of what I expected.

Mrs t might want to change her flight LGW/CPT. Currently booked as a J Saver, on the desired date the only availability is J Flex+ at around R15000 or F saver at R9000 (including the change fee). (Flex+ at R32000...)
So easy decision although with clever 'nesting' of multiple trips it can be done for less. No prizes for what I would choose.
But we are not yet sure that the change is needed, so we need to hang on for a few days (and then the F Saver availability might be gone and the subject is moot). If / when we do get around to it, I'll call and try but I expect to get the 'two separate changes' argument.