Hi!

I just wanted to say that the situation mentioned above is not that rare.

I was taking my first flight with Emirates in May from Frankfurt to Beijing via Dubai and me and my friend (on the same reservation) were upgraded from Y to J on the Dubai - Beijing segment.

See if you can change your seat to something in the high teens... 15,16. 23 puts you a few rows in front of the bar. iirc the highest row is 26... and boy can the bar get noisy.

How? Y class must be overbooked and J must have free seats. It does help if you are any Skywards member. My parents, even in Skywards blue, got upgraded DXB - FRA after coming from PVG, so they were very happy.

Well. One thing that I did after signing up for Skywards is to write them that I am a Skyteam Elite Plus and am expecting lots of Europe trip. I told them about this first trip which I had a lot of cost constraint since a conference organizers were paying for my trip. So I did write this part to them. But never heard back from them.

But today, when I was checking in, they just did it, without asking or without even mentioning it. I first thought it might be the above mail that I wrote to them but I did see the business full and some of the people who were waiting on the economy line check in with me were bumped up. So, I don't know the magic secret.

Now, I just arrived in London, completing the transfer from Dubai to London, which this time, the flight was full. My seat was behind a lady with a baby and next to me was a father who seemed to be a newbie on the plane. By the time I got to London, baby was druling on my seat, father knocked over food tray to me, and it was filthy and messy!!! So, my today's experience with Emirates is a ++ and --, concluding in average!

Yeah, blame Emirates for having the cheek to sit somebody near you. I can't believe what some people complain about

cheers,
Rick

DYKWIA -honestly it IS the airlines fault afterall - if some folk regard themselves as SO special then Ek should treat them so - they obvioulsy got the message, afterall he wrote to EK himself explaining how important he was - so they really should have picked up on it and upgraded him for the whole journey! a -- due to other passengers - i woonder if they are in a thread, how they would describe him?

No Harsh feelings on emirates. Just explaining what could happen and how it could happen. I was surprised on the upgrade since I was on a 500$ flight roung trip and was wondering what could be the reason. (Not saying I am Important but just sharing that this was what I did) and for the baby, just an experience sharing. Trust me, no one probably wanted to go through what I did when you are on a flight for 15 hours and have baby throwing food at you and druling at you when their parents really do not control them but smiles at them without apologizing to me.

Hi all.

Earlier this year my parents who had never flown with EK before were upgraded at the gate at DXB. They had flown MEL-DXB-CDG and I had upgraded them to business for the DXB-CDG leg with points. On the way home they flew LHR-DXB-MEL. On the leg from LHR they were asked to fill out a survey and did so, my mother mentioned that she 'loves emirates, especially business class but wasn't look forward to the long haul flight in economy.' She insists she wasn't looking for an upgrade. The FA smiled and said he was sure it would be fine and left it at that. At the gate they were upgraded to business for DXB-MEL, no reason was given, and they were of course only skywards blue at the time.

Also, I have a flight on 3 Sep which I am not 100% sure I will be able to make, but would like to upgrade when I know I am on it. The flight is EK075 DXB-CDG. When is the latest I could leave it to upgrade without risking missing out. I should know whether I will be on the flight by early August, should I upgrade now and risk it, or will my chances be good at this time?

Cheers

Emirates/Skywards are great a recrediting miles back to your account if you decide not to go ahead and book. I remember a while back I wanted to upgrade, but did not have the miles in my account at the time, they held a booking for me even. Skywards have to be the most flexible airline when it comes to spending miles. Book it now if you have the miles, and cancel nearer the time. I have just cancelled an upgrade for Friday, I rang them, and now I am back in J class and checked my account less than 30 minutes after and the miles are back into my account and the ticket has already been re--issued in J. Top marks to Skywards for this!

All I can say is that EK upgrades are random to say the least. I've been a Skywards Gold with gazillion miles for the last 4 years. Out of the 100+ flights, I've only been upgraded twice. Less than 2% success rate!

To be honest, it makes my blood boil to see how randomly EK hands out upgrades!

I completely agree, I too have been loyal since the program started, having been Gold since 5 months after they introduced the program in fact. I have must admit, I have been looked after when flights are full etc, but more often than not travel in J or F anyway.

It rages me to hear of randoms upgrades and worse, those that gloat about it I guess.

Really? I have had very good chances with overbooked classes I was travelling in. Whenever it is overbooked (and next class was available)being Gold got my upgrades more than half of the time.

On the flip side: On DXB - DME, premium cabins were always full and in 4 months flying every week just got me one (!) upgrade.