Does Emirates have a set time frame for releasing F award seats? Also, will they release additional F award space close in to flight date? Currently scheduled in F on Etihad 789, but would love to fly the A380, and experience the full F ground service that is apparently not available at AUH.

There's not set schedule as far as I am aware.

My understanding (based on observations, not real knowledge) is that EK will only release award seats when they (undoubtedly through some algorithm) decide that the chance that they sell the seats for cash is small. I have found that sometimes there are seats 'for sale' up to hours before departure and they use keep those for late 'walk up' passengers which the algorithm believes is possible for that route and that date / time. That is why there is even an 'on board upgrade' possibility (for Silver and above Skywards members only) based on 'empty seats during boarding' .
The long and the short of it is that it is fairly unpredictable. Of course low road factors due to Covid related travel restrictions will have influenced this process.

Thanks. Lufthansa might come through fir me. Looking to fly A380 or 747-8 F around Christmas. Have Etihad booked for now.

From my own anecdotal experience, ive found on very lightly booked flights in F they release a seat 3 days before departure.
Ive a fairly good track record of getting the seat i want, but only ever when the flight is lightly booked as in 1 or 2 pax confirmed in F on 777 3 days before departure.

Thought I’d post a quick reference point. I booked an F award back in May of 2021 for travel in March of 22. At the time I was looking at LAX or SFO to DXB. We wanted to fly the A380. LAX basically had no availability, but I was able to book the SFO flight. Well, fast forward a couple of months and that SFO flight was changed to the 777. So, for the past several months I’ve been checking, nearly every day, for a LAX-DXB segment to open. Just so happens that last night at 28 days out, 2 F seats opened on the LAX to DXB route!! Pretty anecdotal, as it looked like the only day that opened for at least that whole week, but great nonetheless and shows that EK does open additional space from time to time. I guess, someone could have canceled??? But, my guess is it opened up at 4 weeks. Either way, unbelievably I was able to call in, no hold time, and get things switched. Not ticketed yet….but it’s only been about 12h, so it should ticket soon…I’m hoping.



Now I’m sure the SFO flight will get switched to the new F 777 and I’ll be drowning my tears in a bottle of Dom flying in the A380…. ;-)

Congrats! Persistence really pays off. I have noticed that one F award seat is not too hard to find from the US to DXB and back on the 380 if your flexible in terms of dates and positioning flights to the major cities but it looks like two award seats in F have become much more scarce lately.

Im booked for September 2022 out of SFO. Back in December was able to upgrade my return to F for 2 and in January for a number of days the outboumd was available but I didn't have the miles. fast forward to today, I now have the miles but there is no availability. will be checking daily until September for something to open up, will also check lax. looking at expert flyer as of today all seats are available so keeping fingers crossed

when I booked this trip late last year it looked like they were going to bring the 380 back to SFO come mid-Feb but now it looks like April.

At minimum at least I have one direction in F, I'm excited and can't wait to surprise the wife as she thinks we are just in business

I've received an upgrade to F for the DXB to LHR leg of my flight this weekend, can't wait to get back in the air and enjoy it!

I used the "auto-upgrade when seat available" option via the Emirates app just after I booked my flight (I checked for the availability and enabled it right after I booked). I was upgraded three days before my flight.

But the miles need to be in the account already for the auto-upgrade to process, correct?

Yes

have a flight in about 30days and had both notify and auto upgrade selected with enough miles in my account; I have been checking regularly for upgrade availability and last night on the app is said it was available for one of my legs for two so I booked it. There was no email notification about the upgrade availability and it did not auto book so I am glad I check regularly as I have no faith in either of these options.

I was wondering if there is an efficient way to monitor for F award availability..... whether through EK website or utilizing a 3rd party app. I am hoping to book F award (which will have to be a Flex Plus award no doubt) and will be coming up to the 330 day reservation window opening up soon. I have been trying to look at phantom dates now on the EK website using the flight search routine, but it seems like I have to hunt and peck day by day. Any suggestions appreciated.

Nothing that I'm aware of. ExpertFlyer used to work, but doesn't anymore.

QF is not bad for checking for EK availability as you can get a calendar view that shows which classes are available on each day over a one month period. To access this calendar view you need to click on the multi-city option under Book on the home page, select the Use points - Classic Flight Rewards only option, enter the flight segments you want (you need only have one) and select your dates (in the dates window check the Flexible with dates for all flights box in order to get the one month calendar view). Of course this search is going to find carriers other than EK, but not too many will be offering F.

I'm not an expert on the EK booking tool, but I did think that QF could see slightly further ahead than EK. Also there is no guarantee that QF availability is the same as EK availaibility, but QF might be a good place to start, and then switch back to the EK site.

If you don't have a QFF account I believe you can set one up for free.

ETA: Login to your QFF account before you start searching.