EK Upgrades
 

Hi, a newbie at EK. I am flying my first EK flight soon from Shanghai via Dubai then from Dubai to London. Since I am connecting right away, I seem to be flying a long time.

Any thoughts on how to upgrade my seats to business? I see that need around 80k miles to upgrade for round trips. But since on the way back, I am staying a day in Dubai, I won't be suffering as much as on my way there.

Would one way upgrade be possible or even from Shanghai to Dubai route and is buying mileage (either from Skywards or from someone else) worth it? I see some ebay sort of listing selling upgrades but are they credible?

Thanks in advance.

1. Yes, you can upgrade singe segments of the flight, say PVG - DXB only.

2. No clue about ebay purchase of mileage but you should know that miles are not transferable which implies that you need to trust the seller to do the upgrade for you.

I am planning on transferring some SPG points to do something similar...
How hard is it to get a points confirmed upgrade on EK?

Not too difficult. You can call EK before purchasing the ticket to confirm availability. I have not done SPG -> EK though so not sure how many days/weeks it takes to transfer.

How can I tell what kind of ticket class a quoted fare is in economy? I have the fare name and looked at the rules, but cant seem to find the information I need. What I am trying to find out BEFORE purchasing this fare is if I can use my Skywards Miles to upgrade the return leg to business class. I have just enough miles to do so.
The ticket is YYZ-DXB 23rd Oct returning 26th Oct on EK 242 and EK 241, respectively. It is the return leg I would like to upgrade. The fare is RB3MPCA1. The Skywards Website says I need 45000 to upgrade but I dont know if this is an upgradable ticket???
If no-one can help I may have to phone Skywards...

All (except redemption) economy class tickets are upgradable.

Thanks for the reply to my question above, now lets hope I can get this upgrade using my Skywards points before they expire...... Business class on the 380 will be an amazing ride!

It sure is, quiet, spacious (request window seat for even more room and privacy) and a great few hours stood at a free bar too.

Icidentally, I and a fellow FT'er travelled on the 380 in First, we went to the bar, and asked them to bring up the Dom to the back, the crew obligued and treated some of the J passengers to our DOM - It was such a good trip...

From my experience it seems to be far harder to get an upgrade to Business availability using miles on the 380 than all other EK aircraft where an upgrade is generally always available.

Not sure if this is a deliberate Emirates policy or just that the 380 is so popular now.

I got mine !
I am on EK242 YYZ-DXB in Y, spend a day and two nights there, then back on EK 241 in J in seat 23K. I had no trouble doing the upgrade, but then the plane looks very empty, perhaps because it is so far in the future, this is in October. I had to do it now as all my Skywards Miles would expire in August.

I am looking forward to the whole A380 experience.

3 of us have managed today to upgrade from y to j on the ek001 on 14th august. 3 spearate skywards accounts, 3 separate bookings. However we were told that we had the last upgrade seats for that day. 2of ushave managed to upgrade on the return portions too.

Last week, on the dxb-bkk on the 380, we had f seats booked, J was full but there were only 5 of us in first.......... I did not go downstairs so not sure how busy Y was!

and we've got 2 x F upgrades from J on the dxb-bkk-dbx return. I may never know what the J cabin feels like :)

Just walk through it on your way to the lounge at the back! It's vast!

Just arrived in Dubai from Shanghai. They bumped me up to business for free without any mileage. This was my first trip on Emirates. I am extremely satisfied!!!

How?????????

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. :p 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!

Random Upgrades
 

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.