Hello everybody,

here is a question from a very unfrequent flyer:

We (this is Mrs PeterMaas and me) are looking forward to our trip to New Zealand in february. Our booking in Economy DUS-DXB-AKL (EK58/EK406 feb 8th/9th) and CHC-DXB-DUS (EK413/EK55 mar 7th/8th) was confirmed.

Then we thought upgrading to business would be a good idea, and the travel-agent was able to offer an attractive fare (in C-class I suppose). Too bad we endet up waitlisted on the DXB-AKL and CHC-DXB sectors.

What is your estimation about the chances to move from waitinglist to the desired seat in businessclass?? Any experiences in similar situations??

What, if it doesn't work out - do they keep our confirmed booking in economy? It doesn't show up in "My itinary" any more

Since not having a windowseat really makes me Iwould hate having to wait till the very last moment and finally ending up in a middle row of economy.

Any contribution welcome!

Greetings from Germany,

PeterMaas

This sounds risky to me - you should contact Emirates to make sure your booking remains in their system. Travel agents are not always reliable.
As you are Skywards Blue member, there should be no problem reserving your preferred seat in advance.

Concerning the missing booking in your "My Itinerary" screen, I guess the travel agent got a new reservation code by booking the Business-Class tickets. If he didn�t add your Skywards number to the booking, the itinerary won�t show up (in that case, you have to contact EK via the provided online form).

As a Skywards member, you have waitlist priority, however the status passengers go first. I think, EK will do their best to get you onboard.

Have a nice trip ^

Join skywards if you can and hold window seats in economy. If the upgrade clears, youll get new J seats - otherwise you'll keep the y ones.

In terms of the WL clearing on your flights... I'd say the DXB-AKL has a very low chance (<10%) and the CHC-DXB <5%.

Cheers

I looked at DXB-AKL on EK406 on 9Feb. The flight is sold out in J class, so your waitlist for C class is not likely to clear. Why don't you confirm and/or waitlist on one of the 2 other DXB-AKL flights, instead. Everytime I have put in a waitlist for C class (and the flight has plenty of J class seats avail, which EK432 and 418 DXB-AKL do), then the waitlist has cleared, usually within a week or so.

Shilla, sadiqhassan and SFO_FT:

Thanx for your helpfull responds.

I thought SFO_FTs suggestion to get on the waitlists of EK 418 and 432 was a good idea, so I called my travelagent. She said she couldn't do it because EK would find out and kick one booking out of the system.

That didn't sound plausible to me: Wouldn't EK do anything to sell the higher priced ticket - esp. when it moves passengers from highly booked EK406 to not so higly booked EK 418 or EK432?

I called Emirates and to my surprise they said there was nothing they could do for me: Travel agents had limited rights when it comes to placing passengers on different waiting lists when it's not an upgrade on the same flight. And since the booking was made by a travelagent they couldn't do it neither...

Hmmm - looks like I have to hope for the small chance of C-class clearing up on EK 406/413)

Regards
PeterMaas

Very true, that is if EK does find out. This has happened to me on numerous occastions. Turning up at the airport without a reservation is quite annoying. (EK tends to cancel the one you were confirmed on first off first)