Emirates upgrade questions
 

Hi all,

A couple of Emirates upgrade questions where I couldn't find directly an answer for on this forum.
I'm looking at booking a business one way fight: ICN to BRU and I would have following questions:

• When I check the Business flex fare, it says currently no upgrade available and miles: 60.375 Miles
• When I check the legs separately DXB to BRU has availability for upgrade of Business Flex to first: Upgrade available : 44.850 Miles

=> Is it possible to upgrade one of both legs on a ticket ICN to BRU when only one of both legs has first class upgrade availability?
Or is it only possible to upgrade the whole booking?

I see that there is only 1 seat available for upgrade (all dates and all European destinations always have only 1 first class seat award available).

• If I make a booking of 2 adults Business Flex ICN to BRU, will it then be possible to upgrade for 1 adult 1 leg (DXB to BRU) to First?
• Or do I need to make 2 separate bookings?

Thanks

1. You can upgrade the DXB/ICN leg on its own. This is not possible with cash, but no problem with miles. Bear in mind that the availability may have disappeared by the time you book your J ticket.
2. If you want to upgrade one person, you need to have separate bookings. Upgrades are always for ALL passengers in the booking. If you already have the ticket booked, the call centre can split the booking for you, that's no problem.
How do you know there is only 1 upgrade seat available? I don't know an easy way to establish that, apart from the rather tedious way of dummy bookings for 1 and then for 2 passengers.

Thanks.
When I search for 1 adult DXB to BRU, the business flex ticket says:
Upgrade available (This fare is currently available for upgrade. Note that prices shown are per person and availability is subject to change at any time. An upgrade for this flight is not guaranteed and will only be possible after your booking is complete, if availability still exists at the time the upgrade is requested.)
44,850 Miles

When I search for 2 adults DXB to BRU, the business flex ticket says:
Eligible (This fare is eligible for Miles upgrades. Price quoted is per person and there is currently no upgrade availability for this flight; there may be availability at a later stage. After your booking is complete, please check for availability on Manage a booking.)
44,850 Miles

You can sign up for the Auto upgrade feature in the app ...... It may come through closer to your dates.

Or not. It doesn’t always work so I wouldn’t rely on it.

To the OP—if you can grab any upgrade (1 pax/1 leg) now and aren’t too tight on miles, I’d do that. There’s a decent chance the other pieces will fall into place at various later points, but a bird in the hand… So book and check regularly.

Don’t trust the app. It didn’t offer an option to upgrade from J to F on my one remaining flight on a 3-class A380. When I called today to confirm my hotel for the layover, I asked if an upgrade was available before ending the call. Fortunately, I did because one last seat for award redemption was available.

He who perseveres gets the worm or, in this case, caviar.

Hello everyone,

I'm booked on an Economy Flex ticket from JNB>DXB>PEK on January 17th. First leg A380, second leg 777. When booking, it said "Upgrade to business (per passenger): 74,750," though not currently available -- fair enough.

Currently in the app, it splits up the two legs as costing 60,840 (leg 1 -- unavailable) and 65,910 (leg 2 -- available).

Does anyone know: if the first leg does open up, would the total to upgrade both revert back to the 74,750 total?

Just a quick reply as I am in the middle of something elase:

Once you have upgraded one leg , the only way you can get the lower 'combined' upgrade total is to phone the contact centre and ask for the two legs to be combined. If you do the second leg though MMB, you will NOT get the combined total but the sum of the two separate legs. And if you then phone in and try to change that, chances are that it will NOT be possible.

Got it, thanks! I haven't upgraded the 2nd leg yet and since it's not a red-eye I wouldn't do it unless I could get the first leg with it, basically just wanted to make sure if both opened up that the lower combined rate would show in the app.

Pretty wild how much it is to do both separately!

One other question -- is it worth calling to check if an upgrade is available even though none show online? Any data points on that or is that not worth the time?

Just to clarify: the lower rate will not show in the app, it will show you the ‘per leg’ rate. You need to call to get the combined rate.

As far as calling in is concerned: from experience it is worth calling in at T-48 hours. That is not to say that you will be successful, but the website is not 100% accurate.

Holy hell -- the first leg (A380 JNB to DXB) opened this morning!!!!!! In the app it said each leg was the same 60k+ price, but below it said "upgrade both for 74,750". So once I checked off both flights, the final price changed to 74,750. Transfered the points and confirmed the upgrade.

WOW this is one of the coolest award moments I've ever had, I'm so hype haha

I appreciate your replies and info!

Do you happen to know if you are able to upgrade when the initial reservation is on points?

Hi Lotusotis,
Welcome to FlyerTalk and the Emirates board!
Yes, you can upgrade award tickets with miles. Subject to availability of course.

Point of reference, we were on J award tickets from Lanarca to Malta. Expert Flyer showed F3 the morning of our flight. We showed up at LCA right when the ticket office opened, agent looked our tickets up and said we could not upgrade a mileage ticket with miles. I called the main line and the agent on the phone said the ticket office had no idea what they were talking about and to check with both the check-in counter and on board.

Check-in counter opens, immediately confirms our upgrade for an additional 13,000 miles.

Unfortunately the plane was only 15% full so we boarded 15 minutes before departure time and were pushing back from the gate 13 minutes later. Fantastic flight with the normal exceptional crew, purser was from Malta so got lots of tips.