Emirates First Class JFK-DXB plus DXB-DOH (many pictures)
Mar 19, 2006, 8:51 am
#1
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Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: USA
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Emirates First Class JFK-DXB plus DXB-DOH (many pictures)
On the heels of the wonderful trip report by SanDiego1K, I'll be putting together a trip report for EK F class JFK-DXB along with a stopover in Doha, Qatar (DXB-DOH). Parallel to this will be a review of the Ritz Carlton Dubai and Ritz Carlton Doha that I'll post in the Luxury Hotel forum after this report is completed.
There are about 200 pictures of the Emirates experience with the vast majority on the JFK-DXB flight segments.
Jumping to my thoughts on the flight...
All of facilities and physical components of the JFK-DXB EK F expereince are top notch and fairly represent everything that Emirates touts about the flight. The personal service lacks polish versus other F products (most notably SQ F), but is certainly not a big drawback when the physical product is as strong as it is. Bottom line: if I'm traveling anywhere where a connection through DXB is conveinent, then EK F is the way to go...but I would not go out of my way for it on a flight like NYC to Singapore or NYC to Moscow.
There are about 200 pictures of the Emirates experience with the vast majority on the JFK-DXB flight segments.
Jumping to my thoughts on the flight...
All of facilities and physical components of the JFK-DXB EK F expereince are top notch and fairly represent everything that Emirates touts about the flight. The personal service lacks polish versus other F products (most notably SQ F), but is certainly not a big drawback when the physical product is as strong as it is. Bottom line: if I'm traveling anywhere where a connection through DXB is conveinent, then EK F is the way to go...but I would not go out of my way for it on a flight like NYC to Singapore or NYC to Moscow.
Mar 19, 2006, 9:25 am
#2
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Join Date: Feb 2002
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Mileage Redemption Booking
On President’s Day both my wife and I had a very light schedule. We lounged around the home all day reading trip reports on Flyertalk, looking at the great pictures, and wishing we had some kind of vacation planned. We looked at each other and said, “What the heck…let’s burn some miles and points”. We agreed that we had to be gone for at least 5 or 6 days, that the flight and hotel would cost us no more than $0 (excluding mileage fees and taxes) and it had to be in mid-March because we both had a lull in our schedules at that point. We knew very well that we would be hostages to mileage availability for both our flights and our hotel, so we could wind up taking a vacation in a place that was not at the top of our list.
I had about 300,000 miles in my DL account and I wanted to burn them on this trip. With the loss of Virgin from the program this past January I was growing concerned about further devaluation of the program. The first choice of all the flights that we could book was 2 seats on Emirates in First Class from New York to Dubai. We had never visited the Middle East before. We also had never flown EK before though we had tried to book them before but there never was DL award availability. So with the first call to DL I asked the agent for EK F JFK-DXB for mid-March and gave him a 4 day window for departure and 4 day window for arrival with my top priority getting F versus having him target a certain date in the window in J or F. He put me on hold and he started plugging away. Each individual flight request took about 4 or 5 minutes to determine whether there was availability or not. About 15 minutes later he came back saying he had the outbound done. I was very surprised to land two F seats from JFK to DXB. He started to work on the return. My wife and I agreed that if he came back with only J then we would take it. Well, about 10 minutes later he had the return done in F. I transferred a few more miles over from Amex to DL and a few minutes later we were ticketed for a total of 320,000 miles. If we had paid for the tickets it would have cost about $19,800 (assuming we didn’t get the 2 for 1 in EK F for Amex Centurion members). While I was ticketing the flights my wife burned some Amex points for the Ritz Carlton Dubai Club Level for 46,000 per night for 6 nights. The rooms were running about $800 per night. So the whole process from conception to confirmation took about 45 minutes. And just like that our vacation was booked.
Award tickets on EK come with free limos on the outbound and return for most markets including JFK. I called EK separately to get the seats reserved and the limos booked.
After a few days learning about EK from sadiqhassan and others I added a one night stopover in Doha, Qatar along with an Amex award booking at the Ritz Carlton Doha.
The itinerary was set:
EK 204 F JFK-DXB (A345) connecting to
EK 841 F DXB-DOH (772) no limo available
After 1 night in DOH:
EK 844 J DOH-DXB (773, 2 class configuration) no limo available
After 6 days in DXB:
EK 203 F DXB-JFK (A345)
I had about 300,000 miles in my DL account and I wanted to burn them on this trip. With the loss of Virgin from the program this past January I was growing concerned about further devaluation of the program. The first choice of all the flights that we could book was 2 seats on Emirates in First Class from New York to Dubai. We had never visited the Middle East before. We also had never flown EK before though we had tried to book them before but there never was DL award availability. So with the first call to DL I asked the agent for EK F JFK-DXB for mid-March and gave him a 4 day window for departure and 4 day window for arrival with my top priority getting F versus having him target a certain date in the window in J or F. He put me on hold and he started plugging away. Each individual flight request took about 4 or 5 minutes to determine whether there was availability or not. About 15 minutes later he came back saying he had the outbound done. I was very surprised to land two F seats from JFK to DXB. He started to work on the return. My wife and I agreed that if he came back with only J then we would take it. Well, about 10 minutes later he had the return done in F. I transferred a few more miles over from Amex to DL and a few minutes later we were ticketed for a total of 320,000 miles. If we had paid for the tickets it would have cost about $19,800 (assuming we didn’t get the 2 for 1 in EK F for Amex Centurion members). While I was ticketing the flights my wife burned some Amex points for the Ritz Carlton Dubai Club Level for 46,000 per night for 6 nights. The rooms were running about $800 per night. So the whole process from conception to confirmation took about 45 minutes. And just like that our vacation was booked.
Award tickets on EK come with free limos on the outbound and return for most markets including JFK. I called EK separately to get the seats reserved and the limos booked.
After a few days learning about EK from sadiqhassan and others I added a one night stopover in Doha, Qatar along with an Amex award booking at the Ritz Carlton Doha.
The itinerary was set:
EK 204 F JFK-DXB (A345) connecting to
EK 841 F DXB-DOH (772) no limo available
After 1 night in DOH:
EK 844 J DOH-DXB (773, 2 class configuration) no limo available
After 6 days in DXB:
EK 203 F DXB-JFK (A345)
Mar 19, 2006, 3:58 pm
#3
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: USA
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Posts: 2,550
The Trip Begins! Limo Pickup and Check-in
Confirming my limo pickup in Manhattan was an unnecessary hassle. I called a few days out to confirm and was told that I should call back later the some day due to an unspecified problem confirming the limo. I called as instructed and was given essentially the same line except that I needed to call back tomorrow. Once again they could not articulate what the problem was. So I called back as instructed and was again told to call back later. This wouldn’t even be noteworthy if the agents did not become increasingly more abrasive as I followed their instructions to call back. Finally, in the late afternoon before the flight the following morning the limo was confirmed. Some of the agents were downright rude for no reason at all (I never talked to the same person twice over this 3 day period). This was a little disappointing. Emirates needs to take a close look at who they are hiring in their US office.
The flight was scheduled to depart at 9:10am. Since this was a leisure trip we wanted to stretch out the experience as much as possible and had the limo pick us up at 5:00am. The lounge is scheduled to open at 5am daily. The limos in New York are contracted to Boston Coach. Boston Coach is one of the premier car service companies in NYC (and other cities too). A typical airport drop-off at JFK from Manhattan runs $120 with Boston Coachversus $50 for the average NYC car service. Every car in the fleet is traded in after a few thousand miles. We had a new Cadillac with a nice selection of newspapers and cold water bottles.
Note: The pictures here are fairly dark because it was 5am and I decided that while I would have a trigger happy finger for photos, I refused to use the flash throughout the trip. I did not want to be too obvious in my role as a tourist shooting photos of every detail of our journey.
There was no traffic as we turned into the Midtown tunnel. We then hit a small 5 minute delay on the Van Wyck. Once through that there was no traffic in the JFK departure zone at Terminal 4. We pulled in at the curb directly outside the Emirates check-in area. The departure ticketing area at JFK terminal 4 is set up in a European style. The Emirates desks are the closest to the street in their row with F check in getting the first desk, J the second & third, and Y the remainder. The only other person checking in when we arrived was an F passenger so we shuffled over to the J desk. This particular agent had some trouble communicating with us. Although that was slightly unexpected at JFK, we did not mind very much and just went with the flow. We started filling out the red Emirates F classs i.d. tags. They have a shiny finish that is not very adhesive to any pen ink. Additionally, the ties that are used to fasten the tag to the luggage are gold lace that easily comes untied. We had to fill out two times as many tags as we needed to because of smearing and/or the ties failing. Why can’t airlines just print these up for their premium cabin customers? We added the i.d. tags as the agent fastened the priority indicator tags, the baggage tags and the quick transfer indicator tags.
We checked three bags and kept a laptop and large purse as hand luggage. After about 5 or 10 minutes of check-in we headed away from the ticketing area toward security at approximately 5:45.
The consolidated photo album for this section plus a few other pics not directly linked in the text can be found here.
…next security and the JFK lounge ^ …
(I'm trying to write & upload as fast as I can)
The flight was scheduled to depart at 9:10am. Since this was a leisure trip we wanted to stretch out the experience as much as possible and had the limo pick us up at 5:00am. The lounge is scheduled to open at 5am daily. The limos in New York are contracted to Boston Coach. Boston Coach is one of the premier car service companies in NYC (and other cities too). A typical airport drop-off at JFK from Manhattan runs $120 with Boston Coachversus $50 for the average NYC car service. Every car in the fleet is traded in after a few thousand miles. We had a new Cadillac with a nice selection of newspapers and cold water bottles.
Note: The pictures here are fairly dark because it was 5am and I decided that while I would have a trigger happy finger for photos, I refused to use the flash throughout the trip. I did not want to be too obvious in my role as a tourist shooting photos of every detail of our journey.
There was no traffic as we turned into the Midtown tunnel. We then hit a small 5 minute delay on the Van Wyck. Once through that there was no traffic in the JFK departure zone at Terminal 4. We pulled in at the curb directly outside the Emirates check-in area. The departure ticketing area at JFK terminal 4 is set up in a European style. The Emirates desks are the closest to the street in their row with F check in getting the first desk, J the second & third, and Y the remainder. The only other person checking in when we arrived was an F passenger so we shuffled over to the J desk. This particular agent had some trouble communicating with us. Although that was slightly unexpected at JFK, we did not mind very much and just went with the flow. We started filling out the red Emirates F classs i.d. tags. They have a shiny finish that is not very adhesive to any pen ink. Additionally, the ties that are used to fasten the tag to the luggage are gold lace that easily comes untied. We had to fill out two times as many tags as we needed to because of smearing and/or the ties failing. Why can’t airlines just print these up for their premium cabin customers? We added the i.d. tags as the agent fastened the priority indicator tags, the baggage tags and the quick transfer indicator tags.
We checked three bags and kept a laptop and large purse as hand luggage. After about 5 or 10 minutes of check-in we headed away from the ticketing area toward security at approximately 5:45.
The consolidated photo album for this section plus a few other pics not directly linked in the text can be found here.
…next security and the JFK lounge ^ …
(I'm trying to write & upload as fast as I can)
Last edited by DrivingRain; Mar 20, 2006 at 11:23 am
Mar 20, 2006, 7:59 am
#5
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: USA
Programs: AA2, DL2, Amtrak2, US2, SPG1, MAR2
Posts: 2,550
One kind FTer PMd me to tell me that the links to the pictures are not working. It takes some work to go back and fix them and I'd be very glad to do it, but there just does not seem to be much interest in this report (there have been many EK F reports lately after all!). So mods go ahead and delete this thread if you could. Thanks, DR
Mar 20, 2006, 9:11 am
#6
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: May 2001
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Originally Posted by DrivingRain
One kind FTer PMd me to tell me that the links to the pictures are not working. It takes some work to go back and fix them and I'd be very glad to do it, but there just does not seem to be much interest in this report (there have been many EK F reports lately after all!). So mods go ahead and delete this thread if you could. Thanks, DR
So far, it's very good. Nice and detailed, just how I like it. I say keep going. It's getting read.
Mar 20, 2006, 9:22 am
#7
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: VIENNA VA
Programs: BA emerald, AF rouge ,UA premier executive, SQ,ANA, HYATT,, AMENITI
Posts: 836
Originally Posted by DrivingRain
One kind FTer PMd me to tell me that the links to the pictures are not working. It takes some work to go back and fix them and I'd be very glad to do it, but there just does not seem to be much interest in this report (there have been many EK F reports lately after all!). So mods go ahead and delete this thread if you could. Thanks, DR
Very interested in your report but usually we wait till you finish the comments will come.
BTW excellent report till now
Keep it up ^
Mar 20, 2006, 9:35 am
#8
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Austria (Vbg)
Programs: LX SEN, BA Gfl/GGL, IC Dia, HH Dia, Hyatt LT GLOB
Posts: 1,584
Hey, stop...no way this thread is deleted. 
I really liked your first part your journey. It's like experiencing everything by myself. Please keep it coming!
I hope you enjoyed your stays at the Ritz-Carlton Dubai And Doha, I really liked the one in Doha.
I really liked your first part your journey. It's like experiencing everything by myself. Please keep it coming!
I hope you enjoyed your stays at the Ritz-Carlton Dubai And Doha, I really liked the one in Doha.
Mar 20, 2006, 11:04 am
#10
Original Poster
Join Date: Feb 2002
Location: USA
Programs: AA2, DL2, Amtrak2, US2, SPG1, MAR2
Posts: 2,550
OK...thanks for the encouragement folks!
I will forge ahead.
Yes FF1, we very much liked the RC Doha. The Club Lounge is very impressive and the food presentations very much above average...though not up to Ritz New York Central Park standards. RC Dubai's strengths are the beach/pool and its small size. The rooms and public spaces were nice, but not as sharp as I expected. The finishings just werent as luxurious as most RCs/FS/MOs. The Club food there was below average vs. other RCs.
I will forge ahead.
Yes FF1, we very much liked the RC Doha. The Club Lounge is very impressive and the food presentations very much above average...though not up to Ritz New York Central Park standards. RC Dubai's strengths are the beach/pool and its small size. The rooms and public spaces were nice, but not as sharp as I expected. The finishings just werent as luxurious as most RCs/FS/MOs. The Club food there was below average vs. other RCs.
Mar 20, 2006, 11:34 am
#11
Community Director Emerita
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Anywhere warm
Posts: 33,739
Yes, keep going. Not only are you giving us a report, you are giving us a picture report. ^ BTW, individual links did not work for me initially, but now they are coming up just fine.
Mar 20, 2006, 3:37 pm
#12
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2001
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Originally Posted by SanDiego1K
Yes, keep going. Not only are you giving us a report, you are giving us a picture report.
Mar 20, 2006, 5:04 pm
#13
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Australia
Programs: MP
Posts: 55
Keep it coming!
Another vote for keep it coming, I love the detailed Trip Reports, especially when they cover the whole trip - as in this case the:
9am: Let's Go somewhere
9.45am: Booked to Dubai!
I love seeing how people plan their trips and of course a trip or whatever is a lot more than just the time spent on a plane!
Ernie
9am: Let's Go somewhere
9.45am: Booked to Dubai!
I love seeing how people plan their trips and of course a trip or whatever is a lot more than just the time spent on a plane!
Ernie
Mar 20, 2006, 9:53 pm
#14
Join Date: Sep 2000
Location: Circle City
Posts: 3,568
Great report, keep it coming, and try http://www.imagevenue.com/ for the menu photos you were having trouble with. I don't know the max size it supports, but it's quite large. I have seen at least 2,592 x 1,944 which should be *more* than enough for any photo you have. Again, great report.