I received an email from Emirates this morning, offering an upgrade on one leg of my flight (CPT to FCO) from Economy to Business, for ZAR2500.

It sounds like a good deal, so I logged in to the Emirates site to upgrade. I went through the upgrade process, entered my credit card details, and then after doing the Visa/MasterCode secure code bit, the Emirates site said that my session had timed out!

Now it appears as though the payment has gone through, but my itinerary isn't showing the upgrade. I don't want to do the upgrade again in case they charge me twice, but I don't want to miss out on the upgrade!

Obviously I'll have to phone them tomorrow and find out what the status is (they're not available on Sundays), but what are the odds that by tomorrow all the upgrade slots will be used up, and I won't be able to upgrade? Alternatively, what are the odds that the upgrade did go through and I just can't see it yet?

Was it an automated e-mail or a personal one ? Never received such an offer in the past...

Automated, I think, but personalised and definitely legit. When I logged into the Emirates site, there was a link saying "Upgrade your flights using Email Offer"

I'd do it again, and let the payment go though. Once it's showing as confirmed, immediately contact your credit card company and get one of the charges reversed.

Cheers,
Rick

I thought of that, but I'm not sure if I can reverse the charge - ZA banks work a bit differently to US banks, and there might an issue around the fact that I did enter my SecureCode PIN to authorise the transaction. And I'd only be able to get hold of my bank in the morning, too.

I guess the only thing to do is wait until the morning and then phone Emirates. And hope like crazy that there are still upgrades available!

Do it again, and get Emirates to refund you for one of the charges.

If you have skype call the US number and they will automatically put u thru to DXB if the call centre is closed. otherwise spend the money and call the UAE call centre direct.
the melbourne call centre will be open now as well.

Interesting to see that EK is shooting off these emails. Anyone know how they are sent, like randomly or targeted at specific passengers/flights?

Let's hope I get one of these offers for my upcoming trip.

I am sure they are targeted. I got an offer 3 days before my flight last sunday DXB-DUS: upgrade from Economy to Business for 1490 Dirham (= 290 Euro).
I took the upgrade. In Business were only 11 people, but Economy was nearly full.