EK Upgrades vs. Awards?
 

I invested some time and effort researching EK's policies re awards and upgrades and I would appreciate confirmation that what I have understood is correct, and (even more valuable) a correction of what I got wrong.

Here is what I understand:

1. EK uses booking class O to designate Business Flex+ (aka "classic") award tickets. They use booking class D to designate Business Saver award tickets AND also for Y cash tickets upgraded upgrades to J. Confusingly, O can also be for a Business Saver ticket paid for in cash.

2. Upgrades of cash tickets in Y to J come from the same "bucket" as Business Saver Awards. This means that the surest way of searching for upgrade availability is to search for awards: if they show Business Saver awards available, you can get an upgrade using miles.

3. Naturally, Business Flex+ awards are noticeably more expensive than Business Saver awards / upgrades. Consequently, if both are available, it is a more economically efficient usage of miles to get a Business Saver award or purchase a ticket for cash in Y and use miles to upgrade to J, rather than seek a "classic" award ticket.

4. Since the upgrade costs the same number of miles as a full Business Saver award, presumably it is always more economically efficient (in total usage of miles plus cash) to go for the award rather than the upgrade.

5. The logical conclusion therefore is that it makes no sense economically to seek an upgrade; a Business Saver award is always better.

6. There is a far better chance of finding availability in O class than in D class. Seeking a Business Saver award is EK's equivalent to searching for the proverbial needle, almost. The majority of the usage of miles on EK is for the "classic" or "full fare" awards.

7. This analysis applies to when planning ahead and searching for and purchasing tickets in advance.

Is my above understanding and analysis correct?

What is not clear to me is:

1. When does EK make D class seats available? Is it 11 months before? 5 months? 3 months? Or they do it in batches?

2. The cash paid in addition to the miles when issuing an Award ticket: is it the taxes and government charges or is it "padded" with other fees and charges?

3. When offered an upgrade on the spot upon check in or when boarding: is the number of miles deducted equivalent to the Saver Award? The Flex+ Award? different.

Apologies if this topic had been addressed before and I look forward to learning from the experts.

Hello GoodyGoody. I wanted to welcome you to FlyerTalk and the EK subforum in particular, but it seems you joined in 2018 and have held out to today to submit your first post. So a belated welcome anyway!

I am a bit unsure about your first 7 points as a whole, especially the musings about upgrading Y to J.
My understanding: J awards are available in two buckets, O and D. O is much more expensive in miles than D. I am not sure what the cash difference is between the two awards. You are correct that O is also a paid ticket bucket, called "Saver". I agree that this is a bit confusing. It appears that an award ticket is always (or almost always) a worse deal than an upgrade from a paid Y ticket. Obviously the cost in miles is greater for cheap Y tickets (like saver, which can only be upgraded at check in or on board anyway) than for expensive ines (Flex+). This can all be seen in the mileage calculator on the EK website. What (if any) the cash difference is, I don't know, having never done this. D space is much more limited than O space. On busy, premium heavy routes in high season, there might be NO D availability ever, at all. When the airline thinks they can sell the seats for cash, they won't make them available as award / upgrade space.

Your final three points:

1. This is probably the most asked question on this board. The answer is: there is no way anyone knows. The clever algorithms will decide when they believe the seats won't sell and then make them available as awards / upgrades. Depending on route and time of year, one or two might be available quite early on (say 6 months). If there are any open seats at T-1 hour, you can get them at check in or on board as upgrades.

2. Emirates has a extortionate 'airline applied surcharge', which is many times more than the government taxes and fees. This applies to award tickets, but - with some exceptions - not to upgrades as the surcharge is deemed to have been paid already. One of the exceptions is the UK APD (Air Passenger Duty) which is much higher for J than for Y and the airline will collect this from you. The exception to this again (so an exception to an exception) is the 'on board' upgrade where they will not collect it (which makes the on board upgrade ex UK more attractive than other upgrades).

3. The miles charged at check in or on board are for an upgrade from the applicable Y bucket to a D bucket.

Hope this helps a bit. Others may probably chip in as well.

1. When does EK make D class seats available? Is it 11 months before? 5 months? 3 months? Or they do it in batches?

There's no real consistency, it can be any time, or never.

2. The cash paid in addition to the miles when issuing an Award ticket: is it the taxes and government charges or is it "padded" with other fees and charges?

There is the carrier imposed surcharge on top of government taxes. This differs depending on the market.

3. When offered an upgrade on the spot upon check in or when boarding: is the number of miles deducted equivalent to the Saver Award? The Flex+ Award? different.

It's the same as would be if you'd booked it online.

A couple of times I have upgraded on board with family member where I was on a flex+ ticket but the family member was on a saver ticket (separate bookings). On both occasions I was charged the miles price for 2 x flex+ tickets. I have always wondered if this is a loop hole or if this is just the way it is. It's rare to fly with family so never had the chance to try it a third time.

I've never thought of a Flex Plus award as a "Classic". EK use the term for any award ticket and if we relate Classic to the good old days it would be a Saver Reward. This level of award used to be the only one (well before the current fare families existed) until EK realised they could ask for double miles and somebody might pay it.

As to whether it's better to buy an outright award ticket or upgrade an economy ticket, historically it's always been the latter. Nowadays however with the cash price of tickets having gone through the roof, and the different costs (in both upgrade miles (plus taxes) and purchasing cash) for the different fare types it may well be different.

Sounds like a good loophole!

In my experience, if you are a regular EK flyer upgrading is more economical than using award tickets given the high carrier imposed charges.

I even created a model that tells me, based on the fares (Saver/Flex/FlexPlus etc), award costs and upgrade costs what is optimal and it's usually to upgrade a Y-Flex or sometimes Y-Flex+ ticket that's optimal based on the miles earned/burned.

1. For cash purchased Y try upgrade in airport to J, is there any requirement for which Y class I should buy?
2. Except departure from UK, when I upgrade in airport I just need pay the miles difference? or I still need pay tax/fees difference?

1. "Special' fare tickets are not upgradable at all. Saver can only be upgraded at the airport or on board. Flex and Flex+ can be upgraded at any time (subject to availability of course). The lower the fare class, the more miles it will cost to upgrade. Details are in the mileage calculator on the website (it's under 'Loyalty')
2. In my experience you just pay the miles. The UK is an exception as you already mention (because of the APD, although this is not collected for an 'on board' upgrade). I am not aware of any other exceptions but I cannot categorically state that there are none.

I don't know if it's still true, but when this was discussed a while back, the UK, Pakistan and Lebanon were the 3 places mentioned as having extra tax to pay.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/12171271-post2.html

If I upgrade a Y Flex mileage ticket to J using miles, if F subsequently becomes available can I modify the existing booking to F for only the difference in award price between the miles I've used so far to the cost of an F award or do I need to cancel the entire reservation (I assume upgrade awards are fully cancellable just like my ticket), wait until the miles come back into my account and then book the F award (assuming it's still available....)?

And how long does it usually take for the miles to be redeposited?

You cannot use miles to upgrade more than one cabin. So Y to F with miles is not possible.

Understood. But if I book Y, upgrade to J using miles, and subsequently F becomes available, can I call in to have them manually modify the reservation from a Y award to an F award, or does it need to go through the redeposit process, and if so how long is the redeposit process?

Sorry, I do not understand what you are trying to do here. When you say 'book Y' do you mean 'book a Y award' of 'buy a Y cash ticket). Why would you book a Y award seat and then use miles to upgrade to J instead of booking a J award seat to start with?
If you want to cancel a booking and redeposit, the redeposit is normally instantaneous. I strongly suggest to do all this by calling in. The call centre is much better than the IT system.

yes. I meant booking a Y award. I would do this as it’s less miles for Y with a J upgrade than to use miles for a J award outright.

I'm reviving an old thread, but there's my scenario: I have transferable miles, and I want to book EK F/J for my sister - she does not have any miles. Routing is DXB-YYZ

If/once F award space opens up, is it possible to call in and make a fare/ticket changes from J to F instead of the upgrade option?
I've tried to search this topic but only come up with discussions around mile upgrades, and can't find anything about repricing the award.
Also, in my scenario - I have miles to spare and my sister does not, so she cannot upgrade regardless, i'm hoping I can reprice and pay the difference with my own EK miles on an award for my sister

They would just cancel the J Flex Plus and book a new one in F if it became available,. The miles would be returned instantly to your account in order to make the new booking

Thanks. Glad to hear miles are returned instantly. My first time booking with EK miles

Perhaps that's generally true, assuming you can find a saver award. But then even if the total price in cash plus miles were the same for buying Y and upgrading versus buying a J award, there is the modest benefit of the extra miles earned if you buy Y and upgrade. Maybe buying a J award has modest additional benefits too (some chance of an op-up to F (must be rare), maybe more protection against a downgrade (not sure if this is an issue)).

I have gotten supposedly special prices, less than two weeks out, for upgrades on U.S. flights recently, where they cross out the miles required and replace it. This is for an upgrade confirmable at booking, or technically a separate transaction the instant after you book. In these cases the cash outlay for Y was around the same as the taxes and fees for a J award and the miles were the same or fewer for the upgrade. I don't think I have even seen a corresponding "discount" on straight awards, and rarely see saver awards anyway.

Example: I just paid around $1,350 for a flex-plus Y one-way DXB-DFW with an upgrade for 81,900 miles at booking, around a week before the flight. (I looked for the straight award for the same flight, and I think it priced out at 138,000 miles.) The flight earned a paltry 5,000 miles. For the return, I had booked a straight J award (flex-plus) ORD-DXB three months in advance for 138,000 miles and around $850 in taxes and fees. These are, depressingly, both about as good as redemptions get to the U.S. most of the time these days, and I found the upgrade award a slightly better value. Considering the earned miles, it cost around $500 to save 61,000 miles, which is pretty much a wash in my view, but I am on the borderline for requalifying for Gold and don't have any miles expiring soon, so I took it. They also offered a flex Y ticket with instant upgrade on DXB-DFW, for less cash and more miles of course, but I found that a slightly worse value.

Note that these were both for B777 routes, while I would have preferred the A380. I was limiting myself to routes in the Central or Pacific time zones as I was traveling to PHX. (I am really hoping they start flights to PHX/LAS/DEN.) DFW was suboptimal for this trip, as I needed two flights to get to PHX on UA, but I liked the flight timing, leaving DXB at 2:00am arriving 8:00am, instead of a daytime flight like the majority of U.S. outbound itineraries.

Barely book EK flights so I figured this would be the best place to ask this question

​​​​​​Want to book EK DXB-MED one way

For a flex plus award in J it costs 30000 miles.

If I book flex plus economy, it is 10000 miles, and it mentions I can upgrade to business for 11700 miles.

Before I transfer the points, I wanted to make sure I'm not missing anything and that I should book the economy ticket and upgrade.

As long as there’s saver availability in J, this would work. Saver availability can be checked by doing a dummy return booking as they can’t be booked one-way.

So there would need to be a saver J award on the flight for an upgrade to be avaliable?

I am unable to see it on Emirate's website as it only shows Flex plus, but it does show a business class award available on the flight on the Qantas award search. Would that indicate that a saver award is available?

AFAIK, if you can’t see it on the EK website, it’s normally not available. I know nothing about Qantas. Might be worth calling EK to see if they have saver availability. I’ve had it once where it wasn’t showing on the website but when I called in, there was a seat.

Trying to use Expertflyer to track Business Saver awards. Do these come from the 'D' fare bucket? EF does not seem to list D, only 'O', which I assume has the Flex Plus awards. Any insights?

Yes, Saver awards come from D bucket. For a few years now, EF does not show award buckets in any class anymore, so there is no straightforward way to check availability apart from trying to book one.

I checked EF and I see O class availability. Is O Class available to upgrade from a Flex fare in coach or can it be used to book an outright award reservation in J?

Is there any other tool, e.g seats.aero, roame etc that gives more access to other buckets inc F?

O is a business flex award bucket so yes, it can be booked as an expensive (double priced) award but it does not mean an upgrade is available. For that you need D, a saver award or regular priced upgrade.

The above is completely correct, but just for clarity: O class is also a Business Class Saver fare, which you can just book with cash.

Still kind of confusing, I see that O Class is a classic rewards (use miles to book). if I see offer available on a one-way ticket and ability to upgrade to next class with Miles, is that also O class?

How and when do you find saver level class availability and why would this only be of use for upgrading a saver level ticket usually a few days before departure?

The (understandable) confusion here is that 'O' bucket is used for two purposes:
1. The most common one is a commercial, cash Business Saver fare. It is the lowest cost fare that still gets chauffeur drive, lounge access and seat selection (the cheapest fare is 'Special' which books into 'H' bucket). Saver is upgradeable with cask or miles, but miles upgrades are only available at check in or on board. Check in starts at T-48 hours, so you don't have to be physically at a check in desk. Obviously you will need more miles to upgrade than from a Flex or a Flex+ fare. 'Special' fares are not upgradeable with miles (but I guess they are upgradeable with cash, not sure).
2. The other one is a Flex Business award. If you try to book a classic award (which, as mentioned earlier books in 'D' bucket) and it is not available, you will be offered a flex award in 'O' bucket (at considerably more miles, I have no experience at how many, but I have heard it is double the amount for 'D').

If you want to check 'D' bucket availability, there is a workaround as a classic award books into the same bucket (D) as an upgrade. So you look for classic award availability (there is a 'switch' for that on the booking page). Make sure that you search for a return trip award, as there is no such ting as a one-way classic award. Just put in a random date for the return flight and only look at what is presented as miles required for the outbound. If that number of miles equals what you find in the mileage calculator (under 'Loyalty' on the website), it is 'bingo'!

Hope this clarifies things a bit!

Hi, I have booked economy flex for JNB-DXB-VIE that I already upgraded to business with 50000 points. Right now the booking naturally (before OLCI) shows that I can not upgrade with miles nor purchase upgrade to F. I know that at the airport & on the plane upgrades are available if seats are free but is there fixed price, at least for the miles from J to F? Thank you

It depends on what J bucket you are currently in (if you started from Y Flex it’s probably J Flex, but the 50K miles sort of threw me as that suggests a Y Flex+ to J Flex+ upgrade). The miles required is available in the mileage calculator (under ‘Loyalty’ on the website). I think this will only work on an ‘on board’ upgrade as the official rule is that you can only upgrade one cabin with miles. The ‘on board’ workaround is well known (but AFAIK not published), whether or not it works at the check in desk I simply don’t know. If you try, can you please let us know the outcome. Such data points are helpful for others.

Got you, one ticket is upgraded eco flex for 55k instead of 67k? where I just got some kind of deal, the other ticket is flex plus. Would love upgrade at least the later leg as it is day time and nice 7 hours in the air. Will report next week.

OK, upgrade DXB-VIE from JFlex is 44850 miles, from JFlex+ it’s 39000.
Availability in F for the next 7 days looks quite promising (although this may change quickly, difficult to predict) EK127 on Saturday looks bad, all other flights are F4A4.
Good luck!

Thank you, I am doing the math right now and it looks like it is better to refund, buy biz and upgrade to F with these miles for the whole journey (it is available). The difference between eco flex and biz is something like 30k ZAR so I think it it a little bit better value (I would have to buy the miles for upgrade the leg from J to F anyway since we are far away from FF on EK and we dont have any CC that has partnership with EK but traveling with my father so F for fun would be nice).

JNB-VIE is 57500 from Flex and 50000 from Flex+. Flex+ is usually significantly more expensive than Flex, so you need to offset that against 7500 extra miles you need to buy.

But beware! To get the 'through rate', you need availability on BOTH legs. What you can do, is upgrade one leg first (you mentioned JNB/DXB is available) but to then upgrade DXB/VIE you need to speak to an agent (or do it via direct chat) and tell them that you want the through rate. They will then cancel the existing upgrade and simultaneously upgrade you at the better rate. You CANNOT do this via Manage My Booking and also not at the airport or on board, in that case you will be charged the miles for DXB/VIE on top of what you have already paid! And upgrades starting or ending in DXB are much more expensive than 'through bookings' (85800 from Flex+ if I'm not mistaken) . There are even routes (not in South Africa, I think) where you would get the second leg 'free'! My usual route is between CPT and London (preferably LGW) and I have done this 'through booking in two steps' multiple times.

Good advice, as always, from thijsseh.

Luckily for 747jetter, it looks like upgrades from business to first (both legs) are available every day next week plus EK has some promo going on with respect to the miles needed (48,875/42500 flex/flex+). And the business ticket isn't expensive to begin with...... Happy flying!

Any help how to speed up miles refund for rebooked flight? We postponed by one day our flight from JNB....agent promising yes, both of us would be upgraded to J...after rebooking my dad stays in economy...sorry, now not possible...within a minute. His flights are in economy but I see the upgrade available in MMB for that 50k. But the miles aren't back. Have to say I have never experienced worthless customer care agent than Ms Sophia....

Try calling again and see if they can try to expedite the refund. No guarantees...

I had a similar issue. Used direct chat and miles were there 24 hour later. I generally find direct chat to be more effective than calling.