thijsseh

The fare conditions usually specify that change fees are waived for an upgrade to a higher cabin. You’ll have to do the upgrade by calling EK, the website will charge the change fee (this is a well known IT issue which has been there for s long time). It is way to early to predict if more award seats will become available. You should therefore be prepared to fly business class if it does not happen. But it is far from impossible that your plan works. If you are prepared to pay $9.99 per month for an Expert Flyer subscription, you can set an alert to warn you as soon as an award set (Z fare bucket) becomes available. And you can check the fare conditions (and lots of other things) on EF as well.

waterandwoods

Thank you so much for your reply. I do already have an expert flyer subscription but I must be doing something wrong, when I search for z availability I never seem to find any , even on dates/routes that I can see have at least one award seat available on the Emirates website. Setting up an alert is a great idea and I will definitely do that.

ExpertFlyer Voice

There was and issue with the EK award search over the weekend, it has since been resolved.

ALGU

What difference does First Flex offer over First Flex Plus? Looks like both are refundable and changeable with no fees, just better fare availability?

thijsseh

Flex generally has change and cancellation fees. Where did you see that it does not?

poromenos

Any flight reports from flying Emirates during the current pandemic? I've seen their very thorough checklist on what to expect but any first hand report?

ft101

I think thijsseh wrote one that is now in the Trip Reports Forum.

iFlyMoreThanYou

ek has made some changes to fare conditions over the past week - for example, I class generally had change fees before but can now be changed for free. seems something similar has happened to A class.

that being said, even in the past, fare condition differences between flex and flex plus have been minimal yet fares are much higher. i've only purchased first flex plus once because of availability.

thijsseh

Yes, it is here. But it is a repatriation flight on BA, so not all that relevant to the question.

Ben.

Hello FlyerTalk Jedis,

Newbie here but have enjoyed reading through a few of the EK threads over the last couple of days, apologies if any of my queries below have been answered elsewhere...

Context - the wife and I are flying PER - DXB - LGW with EK in F on the 11th Aug (EK421, EK015). Managed to get them through QFF for about 370k points + ~$600 taxes all up, which personally I find unbelievable! Maybe the lack of flying is leaving more award flights unbooked?

Anyway, my questions are;
1. Does the old style 777/A380 have an HDMI port? (assuming the most recent IFE system).

2. Looking at historical EK421 flights, since they recommenced in June they appear to be using more modern planes (only a couple of flights so far, but A6-EQE & A6-EQG are both ~ 2 years old). Is this a general approach to how Emirates are emerging from COVID? I.e. can I hope that this will continue?

3. My wife is Oneworld Emerald (QF platinum) does she get the standard 50kg baggage allowance, or is there an increased allowance?

4. What’s the likelihood of EK letting us change the DXB-LGW leg to a DXB-LHR leg if there’s space on the flight on the day?

Thanks in advance for the support, and I hope you’re all safely ensconced in fancy flying sardine tins again soon!

Ben

thijsseh

Hello Ben,

Welcome to Flyer Talk and to the EK forum in particular. We hope you will find a lot of information here (and also that you will contribute your own experiences).

It is sort of difficult to answer some of your questions, but I'll give it a try and invite others to join in!

1. HDMI ports. I cannot remember seeing those on either 77W or 380 (there are certainly universal power and USB 2 ports), but then I also have not looked for them.

2. I have also seen that they appear to use 'newer' 77W's during the recovery of the network that is currently ongoing. A6-EQH and later (only 9 frames!) have the new F with fully enclosed suites. On your MMB you should be able to see the seat map for your flights, if there are 6 F seats it is 'new F', if there are 8 it is the 'old' setup. Other than that there is no way predicting what frame will be used for your flights in August. Obviously as more routes are opened up, they will have to use more and different frames.

3. Pass, I have no experience with QF benefits. EK of course is not a OW member so that stays in itself will not convey any benefits but there is a close cooperation between EK and OF where certainly benefits are shared.

4. Currently, I see that mid August they plan one 77W to LGW and 2*380 plus 1 77W tin advanceo LHR. That may well change, no way to predict. I have never heard of anyone changing the routing 'on the day'. If you really want to fly to LHR, I suggest you contact the call centre , who are usually very helpful.

Not very helpful answers I'm afraid, but it's a start.

Edit to add: At the moment it looks like EK421 on 11/08 is 'old F' and EK15 on 12/08 'new F'. I see two F seats taken on both flights, so that must be you (2 E/F on EK421, 1 A/E on EK15)

Ben.

Thanks for the guidance thijsseh - EK015 must have only just changed as it was showing a 14 seat F class cabin yesterday - I'm sure that there will be more changes so I guess we wait and see!
Now to research the best seats for a couple on the "new" 77w - maybe across the aisle from each other? - lots of fun

I believe the new 77w has an HDMI port, just couldn't see anything about the old style.
Fair enough on the frame ages - I'm just getting too excited about what is the first and probably the last time I'll be able to fly in F!

Out of interest I saw in a review the other day that the universal chargers in the A380 & 77w are incompatible with an Apple Macbook charger - does anyone know if this is true?

Thanks!

Ben

DYKWIA

It may depend on the Macbook. However, I've had my Macbook 12 and 13 plugged in, and it does charge - albeit slowly.

Ben.

great thanks - good to hear!

m3red

2k and 2 f

or if you don’t like your partner 2k and 2a