Upgrading to F
 

HI, completely inexerienced EK flyer here but did just get to experience CGK-DXB-LAX in F over summer and it was wonderful. I racked up 26K miles for the flight as well as 45K bonus miles for some issues on the plane (my IFE glitched out through the whole flight and one of my shades didnt close. Lovely cabin manager gave me a bottle of Dom P1 and got me these miles (as I had not complained or told EK anything).

Anyways..... what can I do with 71K miles is my question... I see thats nearly exactly what I need for an east cost to DXB upgrade. However, the outright J buy for that route is really expensive. My outright F buy for my summer flight was less than J on east cost to DXB.

I was looking over some pricing and seems like CGK to MXP is $1500 in J. If I were to buy that how does the upgrade process work with it being 2 diff legs? Any idea how much EK will want for each of those legs?

Thanks :)

EK F is fantastic so welcome!

You can calculate the necessary miles here https://www.emirates.com/us/english/...es-calculator/

The short answer is that both legs will need to be available to upgrade to get the end to end price; otherwise, you will pay for whichever leg is available. If the other leg becomes available, you'll need to call EK to fix things so you get the end to end price as opposed to the sum of each one (which will be more). I haven't done this but others here have and you can look for posts by thijsseh who wrote about this multiple times.

Awesome thanks for the info, link & suggestions. Hope all is well, been a while but remember your good info before & after my AF LP flight.

Lots of partners if you don't find something you like with EK. I've used for short hauls on U2 and more recently a few flights on PG to use up expiring miles.

Thanks. AF and EK are the way to go in F. In terms of those EK miles, that's a slam dunk to upgrade that cheap J ticket from CGK-MXP and I suspect it won't be hard to find space if you're somewhat flexible.

Sweet. Thats my plan. Thats the best J ticket value for such a long distance and at $1500 a no brainer. I am very flexible. I may hit you up with a PM for some help in just figuring out if there is F upgrade availability and the best strategy but hopefully I can figure it out myself.

The link you attached looked like it was to learn how many miles/points you get for a flight but not how much to upgrade from J to F no?

And yes EK and AF really are a level above... I was lucky enough to fly SQ Suites & JL F on the A350 both over the summer and while they were both very nice and I would put them in the top 5 I see them both below EK and AF. The only other presumed top 5 I have yet to fly is Etihad.

It has 3 areas. How much you earn, how much you spend on an award flight and how much to upgrade. Just click the button.


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...dc6d91c9a6.jpg

Thank you for the image/arrow. i got it. I had missed that. Wait, so even at the cheapest J ticket, which I assume the $1500 on that route will be, I have enough miles to upgrade the entire trip?

How do I see if its available on both legs? If it is only avail on 1 leg will EK offer a lower amount for the 1 leg its available on?

Be careful - the cheapest ticket is a Business Special which means no upgrade. You need minimum of Business Saver but that runs the risk of any available upgrades being grabbed by others as these can't be upgraded until check-in opens.

To check in advance, do a dummy booking for First Class Reward flights. If these are available then the upgrade is also available. To check after making a booking, go to Manage a Booking and you should find it there. If only one leg then go the route outlined by NYC1 upthread.

For upgrades to Business it needs to be a Business Saver Reward available but I think First Rewards all come from the Flex Plus bucket so you don't have to beware of seeing the "wrong" availability if checking in advance, but wait until someone confirms that as I'm not 100% sure.

Awesome. Thanks for all that :)

All of this, PLUS: make sure you put a fictitious return date into the search for a F classic award. Classic awards are only available for return flights, but J to F miles upgrades (which book in the same 'Z' bucket) can be used for one way. And of course you will only see availability if it exists on BOTH legs of a multi leg booking. Look for the legs separately to see which leg 'blocks' availability. There is plenty of information on how to book legs separately and still get the (much lower) 'through' cost.

All this from ft101 , and as I mentioned, thijsseh is the pro. Remember to get Business Flex at a minimum (this will be about 30% more expensive in $ but not a big deal). Also, consider other routes--maybe BRU and snag the Game Changer F which I like a lot (especially since there are only 6 pax) (notwithstanding some of the roasting it's getting in another thread). To your other point, Etihad F on the 380 is fantastic too (you could actually fly from CGK to CDG via AUH and on the AUH-CDG leg upgrade to F--maybe one direction EK and the other EY).

I am confused when you say you have to do a return flight to get a classic award. I just went ahead and got to the ticketing screen for a MIA-BOG one way F award and it was going to let me buy it (I think). That’s the only route I could test as it’s 60K and I have 71K.

Thx :)

I think thijsseh got mixed up with Business Rewards where you have to put in a dummy return date when you're looking for one way upgrade availability as they come out of the Saver Reward fare bucket which are only available on returns. For First Rewards (and therefore Business to First upgrades) it's not necessary as First Rewards come out of the Flex Plus bucket where one ways are possible.

The term Classic Rewards covers both Saver and Flex Plus Rewards.

Got it! Thx again :)