thijsseh

Hi Scott, welcome to Flyer Talk and the EK forum.

I am not quite sure what you mean (or understand) by ‘have got this fee waived’.
In order to upgrade your ticket you will (obviously) have to pay the difference in fare (and if applicable, any difference in taxes / surcharges). Now normally when you change a ticket, you would have to pay a ‘change fee’, the amount of which depends on the fare conditions (mainly dictated by the type of ticket). But most (if not all) fare conditions will specify that the change fee is waived when the change is a ‘cabin upgrade’, I.e from economy to business or business to first. So if the agent wanted to charge you a change fee, he was wrong if you just wanted to upgrade (and not also do a date change for instance). In that case, calling back and explaining you want the change fee waived should work.
But obviously, the upgrade itself is not free of charge!

Scott Wullbrandt

Thanks for the reply, and thanks for the welcome. To answer your question, I was just talking about the change fee. The operator told me he had to charge the change fee for the cabin upgrade on our return. 400 each for a total of 1200. He said if I called after we completed the first segment (jfk to Mxp) I would not be charged. I can’t understand why since we are only changing the upgrade to business in the return and I have no problem paying the upgrade fees and taxes. I just don’t want to play the 400 per person change fee.

TheBigY

From my past flights with Emirates my understanding is that there should be no change fee for an upgrade, but there is a fare difference (change in fare). Could it have been lost in translation? Also from some countries (e.g. UK) there is a change in taxes from economy to a premium cabin (J or F is irrelevant). How much was the fare difference they quoted over and above this "change fee"?

Scott Wullbrandt

The fare difference was 649 per person and then 367 PP for the air transportation charges. He then quoted me the price of 4245.46 adding in the 400 per person change fee and tax. It came to 1,415,12 per person instead of the 1015 per person without the change fee. He said it was to to the flight we are taking to MXP but I can’t understand that because that is already a business class fare.

I am am going to call back and see if it was just a mistake.

thijsseh

To double check, what you can also do is try to do the upgrade on line, via Manage My Booking on the EK website. Go into your booking, and use the 'upgrade using cash' tab. There will be an option below the business class flight to choose your new class of service (in this case there will only be one option, 'first'). Click on that and it will work out the total upgrade cost and at the bottom of the screen is how the extra amount is calculated. There you will see the 'change fee', this is the fault on the website which is the reason you should not use this method to complete the upgrade this way (so back out of it at this point), but the amount quoted by the agent should be exactly the same but minus the change fee. I have done it this way several times and always been successful. Let us know what happens, please.

ft101

It might also be worthwhile having the relevant part of the fare rules in front of you when you call so you can quote it verbatim. One I've got here says "CHANGE FEE IS
WAIVED FOR UPGRADE TO HIGHER CABIN"

Scott Wullbrandt

I would like to thank everyone for there help, I was able to successfully get the change fees waived today, I ended up chatting online and receiving the quote there and then they called me for payment. I ended up getting upgraded to business special so no lounge access, chauffeur or advanced seat selection but that saved me$600 dollars and we are not going to use the chauffeur on the return flight anyways. If we do want to use the lounge it is $100 a piece.

thijsseh

Glad to hear it worked out OK. ^
I think lounge is more expensive than $100 these days and you still meed too add tax as well. Seeing that it's three of you it would add back most of the savings you mention, but of course it's entirely up to you. Enjoy the flight!

iFlyMoreThanYou

Depending on the duration of your layover, another option would be to take a cab to DIFC/Dubai Mall (or even Festival City, if you want to be sure to avoid traffic) - after the cab fare you are still left with $80 to spend on a nice meal per person.

iFlyMoreThanYou

Very off topic, but whatever happened to Skywardhunter?

thijsseh

According to his profile, he has been suspended from FlyerTalk. This is normally due to infringements of the FlyerTalk rules and regulations, but detail of individual suspensions are never shared on the forum.

iFlyMoreThanYou

Ah right, didn't realize you could see this from someone's profile. Cheers

mationsbuds

Hi guys,

I'm looking at redeeming a EK F flight through Qantas with a 6 h 40 m transit in DXB. I would like to experience both the F Class Lounge in DXB, as well as the Dubai Connect hotel. Thus I was wondering 2 things:-

1) Is the return chauffeur timing flexible? In that I can arrange to come back to DXB around 3 hours before the flight to experience the F Class Lounge.

2) If this is advisable?

Thanks so much in advance!

thijsseh

You have asked this same question in the Dubai Connect thread and I have answered it there. As a gentle reminder, please note that cross posting is against the FT rules.

mationsbuds

My apologies, and thanks for the reminder!