Just to give an example of my last three Emirates first class redemptions (in each case I found two first class award seats within a week of departure): Like I said, it might sound unlikely to see cabins this empty, but you might be surprised, especially for midweek travel, etc. This also worked for me today EWR to ATH today. Love the blog Ben and keep up the great work. However, I believe a cash upgrade would still be possible (though that could be much more expensive). @ Cameron -- In order to waitlist for an auto upgrade you need to have the miles for the upgrade in your account. I think you're trying to book a first class ticket for two people even though your comment says two one-ways, which is different. I have enough in my individual for one upgrade and enough in the family for one upgrade for my wife, who is on the family. Or anyone have experience with day of departure upgrades on Emirates? How many miles do you need to upgrade Emirates flights? Anyway, as Ben said, check when the schedule is first released (11-12 months out) or just before the flight. This flight is on the 777 with the new first class suites, so we wanted to try for an upgrade. This post contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. :). But what happens when they need to be waitlisted? Emirates Now Bookable on Aeroplan (Book Now for 2023!) - Prince of Travel We may receive compensation when you click on links to those products. Please view our advertising policy page for more information. Even with the losses of corporate contracts. Thanks. Editorial Disclosure: The editorial content on this page is not provided by any entity mentioned herein. While we do try to list all the best miles and points deals, the site does not include all card companies or credit card offers available in the marketplace. Or were you mixing between family and regular? But, telling people they can redeposit Skywards miles easily is just not true. I ended up flying business class, but at least I know that this works space permitting. The past several days Ive been researching a fascinating trick for upgrading Emirates flights (and no, its not dressing nice and saying its your honeymoon), and I even tested it firsthand on an Emirates flight. Spend Miles with our Partners. How To Find Emirates First Class Award Availability. Beware that miles in an Emirates Family account can NOT be used to upgrade on board the flight- even with Skywards Gold status. Any insights on how to get revenue management to release the award, or is that it for me now and just wait until I check in at KUL (1st sector) to upgrade. Travel dates: January to March 2023. At check in and at the gate they are telling me that award tickets can not be upgraded. Emirates is known for having one of the world's best first class products, whether you want to shower in first class on the A380, or enjoy the fully enclosed suite on the 777.. Late last year we learned that Emirates Skywards would increasingly restrict first class awards to members of its own Skywards frequent flyer program.As of April 1, 2021, Emirates pulled first class awards from Alaska . Is The Southwest Premier Business Card Worth It? Thank you, thank you, thank you again for this incredible tip about the upgrades! I am planning to purchase the ticket from the Chase travel portal (to take advantage of 10 points per 1$ spent) rather than the EK website. Waitlisting Emirates upgrades with auto upgrade feature, Upgrading Emirates flights with miles at check-in, You can even upgrade onboard an Emirates flight, how to upgrade Emirates flights with miles, experience Emirates long haul 777 business class, Emirates New York To Milan Flight In A380 First Class: So Fun, Too Short, WOW: Emirates Cancels Most Flights To US Due To 5G, Please view our advertising policy page for additional details about our partners, Business class award tickets can be upgraded to first class using miles (there arent many airlines that let you upgrade award tickets with miles in the same way you can upgrade a revenue ticket), The problem is that when you waitlist a first class upgrade in advance, its still capacity controlled, and if award or upgrade seats dont open up, youll be rejected at the 48 hour mark, and your upgrade request will be canceled, Fortunately on the day of departure there are no capacity controls on upgrades, so you could upgrade to any open first class seat for the same number of miles you can do this at check-in, at the gate, or you can even upgrade onboard with the flight crew, A Business Flex Plus award ticket costs 62,500 Skywards miles, An upgrade from a Business Flex ticket (whether paid with cash or miles) costs 30,000 Skywards miles, You have to request the upgrade at least 72 hours before departure, Auto upgrades can be cleared between 60 days and 48 hours before departure, If an auto upgrade doesnt clear at least 48 hours before departure, your upgrade request will automatically be canceled, I know exactly the three people who had upgraded (I overheard them speaking about it), but they were behind me, and Im not sure how they upgraded; Im not sure if they somehow went to another counter, or if they received some sort of targeted email upgrade offer, Ive flown Emirates first class dozens of times, and I can count on one hand the number of times Ive been on a plane that went out with a full first class cabin, so I got exceptionally unlucky (at least by my standards), Nonetheless I confirmed the process with the check-in agent; she confirmed that if there had been a first class seat empty, I could have upgraded to it for 30,000 Skywards miles, Of course not all airline employees are equally well trained, and airlines also sometimes use contract workers at some airports; so agents at outstations might not always be informed of this, and Id always recommend looking for someone in an Emirates uniform, and/or escalating, The only circumstances under which there might theoretically be capacity controls on upgrades is if not enough food has been catered for all first class passengers; this would only be an issue if a lot of people upgrade on the day of departure (for example, if the cabin goes from two to eight passengers), and you can also generally just agree to forgo the higher cabins catering and receive the upgrade (though even then youll probably still get the improved catering if its available). Interesting. Ben gave you great tips and you ask in the comments "any tips" ??? Flying Ewr Ath today on business flex award. On manage my booking, I didn't have an option to auto-upgrade (not sure if this is because I didn't have the miles in the account yet) but I requested to receive an email if any first class award seats become available. My brother had booked business class for them on the return flight from DXB to IAD today (Dec 15 in Dubai). One of the awesome things about Emirates Skywards is how easy it is to earn the miles. The good news is that this happens more often than you might assume. Everyone seemed clueless about the eligibility of my Business Flex Plus Award ticket for upgrade to First. Best Ways To Book Etihad First Class Using Points [2023] This is a great trick when you consider that Emirates business class award availability is often easy to come by, while Emirates first class award availability can be tough to find, even when the cabin is wide open. 2. Lo and behold the very next morning I received an email saying I could upgrade, so I quickly transferred 30k amex MR and booked the upgrade. Thats especially true when you consider that these flights have among the lowest surcharges. How To Fly Emirates First Class For Free - EclipseAviation.com Emirates adds flights to the U.S., widespread business and first class E.g., JFK --> DXB --> JNB or something similar? With this strategy you can snag even the last seat in an Emirates first class cabin with miles. Emirates flights to and from the United States typically cost between $5,000 and $25,000 USD in first class. I think there were only two other first class passengers on each flight. After booking, I decided to try my luck with Emirates auto upgrade feature. Piggy backing off this, if I used MR for both J tickets from one account, and this F upgrade was available at the gate, could I transfer from two different MR accounts. How to Use Emirates Miles on JetBlue - NerdWallet Okay, in fairness, I failed, but thats not because it doesnt work, but rather for different reasons (more details below). If the flight doesn't work out, search again with less passengers. Airline: EmiratesRoutes: Boston (BOS), Chicago (ORD), Dallas (DFW), Houston (IAH), Los Angeles (LAX), Miami (MIA), New York-JFK, Newark (EWR), Orlando (MCO), San Francisco (SFO), Seattle (SEA), Washington D.C. (IAD) to/from Dubai (DXB)Cost: 125,000+ Skywards miles round-trip in economy, 200,000 miles in business class or 272,500 in first class plus taxes and feesDates: Oct. 2021 end of the calendarPay taxes and fees with: The Platinum Card from American Express (5x on airfare booked directly with the airline or through Amex Travel, on up to $500,000 on these purchases per calendar year), Citi Premier Card (see rates and fees) or Chase Sapphire Reserve (3x on air travel), American Express Gold Card (3x on airfare when booked directly with the airline or through Amex Travel) or Chase Sapphire Preferred Card (2x on travel). My brother had booked business class for them on the return flight from DXB to IAD today (Dec 15 in Dubai). Tip: Upgrade to Emirates first class instead, Redeeming Air Canada Aeroplan points for Emirates first class, restricted partner first class award space, allow stopovers on one-way first class awards, redeeming miles for Lufthansa first class, trick to snagging a seat in Emirates first class using miles, Air Canada and Emirates have a partnership, redeem Aeroplan points for travel on Emirates, Emirates Adds Iced Americano & Affogato To Menu, Emirates 777 Flies All The Way To Kabul, Turns Around, Emirates Cabin Crew Seek Revenge On Complaining Passenger, Please view our advertising policy page for additional details about our partners, A one-way award from New York to Milan or Newark to Athens will cost you 102,000 Skywards miles, A one-way award from Washington to Dubai will cost you 163,500 miles, A one-way award from Los Angeles to Dubai to Male will cost you 186,000 miles, Emirates is inconsistent about making award seats available; Emirates doesnt open a certain number of first class award seats per flight, so theres a lot of variability, On some routes Emirates may open one or two first class award seats when the schedule opens, while on other routes Emirates may not; and that also varies over time, as Emirates sometimes opens award seats in spurts, Availability varies based on how many first class seats are in the cabin, and that depends on, Youll want to find a flight with a lot of unsold first class seats; depending on the market or time of year, thats not necessarily that tough, since many Emirates first class cabins go out pretty empty, You can get a sense of how full a flight is in first class by looking at the seatmap (which isnt always an accurate indicator) and by seeing how many seats are still for sale (though you can often only search four seats at a time), Unfortunately theres not much consistency beyond that sometimes Emirates opens first class award seats a couple of months before departure, while other times its a couple of days before departure; the emptier the cabin and closer to departure, the better the odds of finding award seats, I got two award seats in Emirates new 777 first class (which, I got two award seats in Emirates old 777 first class (which features eight seats) from Dubai to Male, as the cabin was completely empty, I got two award seats in Emirates A380 first class (which features 14 seats) from New York to Milan, as only three of the 14 seats were occupied, Even award tickets qualify, meaning you could book a business class award (business class awards are usually much easier to find), and then use miles to upgrade to first class, in the same way youd upgrade a revenue business class ticket, While you can absolutely waitlist this upgrade in advance, expect that it generally wont clear in advance, Whats different is that on the day of departure you get last seat availability with no real capacity controls for these upgrades, letting you secure seats that you couldnt otherwise get with miles, While this is the policy, not all airport agents are well trained in how this works, and thats especially true at outstations with contract agents, While there are no official capacity controls, the one limitation is that if limited meals have been catered for passengers, an upgrade may be rejected on those grounds. @ Sam -- Thanks! However, looking at first class availability directly, it still shows zero. Assuming you wanted to redeem miles for Lufthansa first class, you can redeem just 50,000 Asiana Club miles for a one-way award between the United States and Europe. Emirates | Skywards - Emirates First Class Availability - Hi, Does anyone know when (if) first class availability will open up (currently booked in J)? Check here before booking an award fare. When I tried to upgrade the ticket to first, it wouldnt allow me. Using a search engine (e.g., Google Flights), search a one-way trip with an arbitrary number of passengers (e.g., 5). Im currently at the airport, and had the same issue when checking in where they said we werent eligible (even though were on Business Flex Plus, booked with miles). Savvy points collectors know to take advantage of loyalty program arbitrage opportunities, so that the airline they want to fly and the airline program they redeem through often arent the same. In general your best odds for snagging an Emirates first class award is to book either as soon as the schedule opens, or closer to departure. ;), If the upgrade is done on the flight date, would a third-party issued ticket work? That's right, as long as an Emirates first class seat is available on the day of departure, you can upgrade to it for a reasonable number of miles, even if you're on a business class award ticket (this same principle works for upgrading from economy to business class, by the way). Randomly, I check MXP --> DXB for this weekend (Apr 15) and found two first class seats. How to book: Search for flights on Emirates' website and transfer points once you find award space. For more TPG news delivered each morning to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. Yeah that makes sense. We'll run a soft credit check to find special offers, but it wont affect your credit score. Air Canada Aeroplan is another option, but Ill cover that in a separate section below. Or can you transfer the points once the upgrade is confirmed? I think this is consistent with Emirates website where it says that these "instant upgrades" don't give you access to the first class lounge (that may be why they weren't immediately issued new boarding passes). Can I ask what miles would be required to upgrade at the airport? @ Sam -- I believe the buckets for upgrades and Flex awards are identical (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Let's start with your first class suite, complete with a minibar, bed, and a privacy door that closes with just the push of a button. Right now my flights are 8 months away. Sounds like an awesome deal for the A380. I was the only passenger in entire F cabin from DFW-DXB on 777 several years ago. Alejandro, do some random searches and see what you come up with. You might want to black out your email address on the screenshot from the autoupgrade page. Emirates Skyward is the airline's frequent flyer program and the miles you can accumulate are known as Skywards Miles. They printed out the first class ticket and the rest is history. 1.) Or partner booking? How To Redeem Miles For Emirates First Class, Redeeming Skywards miles for Emirates first class. I tried this 2 days ago from Dubai to Los Angeles from Business to First. Without further ado, here's the holy grail of award availability searching: It's important to notice that there are common "go-to" methods for booking certain awards. You've already flown their long haul business class in the pastyou even have a trip report on it. Im in Italy right now and had booked round trip J tickets JFK-MXP last September. Heres where the trick comes in: Thats right, as long as an Emirates first class seat is available on the day of departure, you can upgrade to it for a reasonable number of miles, even if youre on a business class award ticket (this same principle works for upgrading from economy to business class, by the way). Tip: Upgrade to Emirates first class instead Redeeming Air Canada Aeroplan points for Emirates first class Bottom line Redeeming Skywards miles for Emirates first class Ill leave it at that for now, other than to say that upgrading to Emirates first class is very, very, very much worth it.". At check in I was told business class was full but after boarding, it was only 1/2 full. Am I understanding the upgrade process correctly? Risk for me would be I keep large stashes of Amex and Citi thankyou points but dont transfer to Emirates unless theres an imminent booking. This deal was first spotted by Thrifty Traveler 's premium airfare deal alert service. Multiple flight attendants to cater one passenger :-). Retail & Lifestyle. Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan no longer in the picture, massively reduced fuel surcharges on all of its award tickets, The best programs for booking Emirates awards, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. I had been checking MMB prior to that and nothing was available, and I didnt check after as I was not looking to upgrade on the outbound. When Do Airlines Release Award Seat Availability? [30+ Airlines] If I upgrade leg by leg, it would cost me 32% more miles, which of course I don't want! Which Routes Feature The New Emirates First Class? Sharing a data point although our bad luck may be more related to attempting a flight change than a cabin class upgrade as your article details. The 8 Best Airline Award Ticket Sweet Spots - One Mile at a Time My question is does an upgrade offer get cheaper during the day of travel compared to an upgrade that might be available months in advance? When she put it in her iPad, it came back and said my mileage Business Class ticket didn't allow for it to be upgraded. March 10 March 11 June 1-4 June 8-10 Dubai (DXB) to Boston (BOS) June 1-6 June 8-11 June 15-17 Both of these flights span more than 13 hours in the air, giving you a ton of time to enjoy all that Emirates first class has to offer. The product has previously been notoriously difficult to book with points and miles, both because the Dubai-based . I even called Emirates and they told me since I didnt buy my ticket direct from them, there is no option to upgrade. The site also allows you to search one week at a time (three days before and three days . Plus, your own feed of TPG content. I was in business both times, with the wife up front. I'm not sure if changing the mileage account number to my skywards on the ticket beforehand would have helped, but three staff members who knew about the policy said it wasn't possible on air canada booked tickets. Got to the airport went to the first class line and asked can I upgrade. You can search Emirates first class award availability directly on emirates.com. Amazing post! I'm looking at flights from MLE-DXB-JFK, and the first class cabin is wide open (some options are completely empty), and the flights are in the next few weeks, but no I just called Emirates. In a way Im happy I got to experience Emirates long haul 777 business class, because wow. Ben - question for you: how does this work for a multi-segment ticket? 4.) Which other airlines offer this sort of upgrade. The opportunity to upgrade doesnt end at the airport. Fortunately you dont have to spend $10,000+ per ticket to fly Emirates first class, as its possible to redeem rewards points for travel in these luxurious cabins. I'm not sure how I would apply miles to this airline. Anyone know if that would work? And on board, it didnt work either. Signing up for a free Emirates Skywards account is the first step in your . But I am so confused. The Trick To Upgrading Emirates Flights With Miles, The basics of easily upgrading to Emirates first class. Skywards offers decent redemption rates, reasonable taxes and fees and lots of transfer partners. I asked at check in and they said they had 1 seat left but I would have to do it at the gate. When they went to the gate, they had indeed been upgraded to seats 1E and 2K (not facing each other, but still worth it). I checked a few days before our flight from DBX -- MLE and Emirates had opened up a few first class award seats, so I was toying with canceling my business class seat and rebooking, but sucked it up with the other poor business class passengers. 48 hours before departure I was notified that my upgrade hadnt cleared, and that my request was canceled. Using a search engine (e.g., Google Flights), search a one-way trip with an arbitrary number of passengers (e.g., 5). Does Emirates allow stopovers on award tickets? Then, by early December, it will offer daily flights to those destinations, as well as double daily flights to New York. Any chance you have any info to share that would help? If the flight does work out, search again with more passengers. Am currently on a waitlist on a DXB-LHR leg. Flew from Delhi to LGW via DXB, Business on 1st sector on arrival immediately went to desk and got a 1st Class Upgrade for 30K each. Further, first class awards are now restricted to Emirates and Qantas members. In most cases, booking directly through Emirates Skywards will make the most sense. First Class on the a380 (DXB -> IAD) was a most special experience. Or does each skywards member need miles in an account? You need a stash of Emirates Skywards miles to make your initial booking, then more to get an upgrade. How to Book Emirates First Class With Points - NerdWallet I never knew this. Airlines make a subset of seats available for awards and upgrades in advance, so the process is easy enough when those seats are confirmable. After looking more closely, she then indicated because it was an award ticket issued by Skywards, she would not be able to change the flight even if availability opened up. Theres even a flexible date option, so that you can search one week at a time (three days before and three days after your desired travel date). On the return flight I checked MMB 4 days before departure, and was was shown the upgrade to be available. The agent there claimed that we could waitlist but we would not know whether it cleared until just an hour before flight time. Both Delhi and Dubai told me they couldn't do it. So I decided to book business class, and worked on securing an upgrade. As mentioned above, Emirates first class awards arent available through most partner frequent flyer programs. To give you a general sense of first class award pricing: As you can see, the value here differs quite a bit. Trying this tomorrow! I woukdnt want to speculatively transfer points to Emirates and mot have an upgrade clear. You'll be picked up by a chauffeur in a luxury vehicle and driven to the airport in over 75 cities worldwide. If I feel fairly confident that award space will open up on a particular route, I just keep checking back once or twice a day, in hopes of getting lucky. The process: It's why EK is my most preferred airline-- in spite of Platinum+ status on other airlines. Please can you update on whether you could upgrade like you mentioned and also if you could do that via call center or through chase portal. The agent checked with a supervisor and I fired up my laptop at checkin and transferred the 30000 MR. This should account for a few 10,000s less in miles used. Do you know if it's possible to upgrade when the original award booking was made with miles of a partner FF program? As mentioned you can do a Google flight search for theoretical tickets but the maximum that will work for Emirates in my experience is 4. Fortunately business class award availability is much easier to find in many markets. Thank you. For an explanation of our Advertising Policy, visit this page. For booking Emirates First Class tickets, Skywards is the best way to do so. Select "Plan & Book" > "Flights" and check the "Use Miles" box He said I can do this up until check in at the airport and even explained back to me that transferring miles to Emirates would result in the inability to transfer them back to my credit card. As I told you in the comments of your last post that in the past month it has taken 15 days to receive my points back after cancellations, including one that was on EKs end. Hi Sean, did you have any luck upgrading this ticket to 1st? Emirates does also sometimes offer upgrades for cash, and the cost of that can vary (though it's not consistently cheaper closer to departure). Find out when Emirates First Class flights are available by visiting FlyerTalk forums. If youve redeemed miles for Emirates first class, what was your experience like? This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site (including, for example, the order in which they appear). I didn't want to argue but it was frustrating to wait only to get so many different answers. Booking First Class with Skywards Miles - FlyerTalk Forums I mean, how many regular flyers even have them? On the outbound the auto upgrade dropped 48 hours before. Fortunately Skywards agents are pretty well trained in booking these kinds of itineraries. Hi! When you get to the check-in counter, just inform the agent youd like to upgrade with Skywards miles, and they can take care of it for you. Benji Stawski is a former reporter for the site, covering all things points, miles, credit cards, travel and aviation. The first Emirates flight listed in the search results does NOT have the mixed-cabin symbol, so you would be flying in business class for both flights. Hoping you see this in time. The problem is that Emirates publishes very little on its website about the upgrade process. So, I am planning to purchase an economy ticket and then use the upgrade option to upgrade to business. Thanks to transfer partners and a beefed-up Emirates Skywards frequent flyer program, the best way to book Emirates first class is generally through Emirates' own Skywards program. The easiest way to book JetBlue awards through Skywards is to do so online. If is chance , make sure to get a card that has this option to transfer ( like Sapphire or preferred ) , after getting the card , open an Skywards miles account You will need to get a credit card so you can transfer points to skymiles , the best ones are American Express or Chase , get a card that gives an initial bonus of 9or close to ) 100K points or more. If you're flexible with your travel dates, you can use points to book a First Class ticket for as little as 70,000 points. In all of these instances, from waitlisting to being at the airport, do you need to have the miles in your account? Basically, what I am asking is if there is a different set of rules (miles required) for upgrade at airport? Looks like it happened. The best award space this fall and winter, including a number of dates with award availability for two people, is out of Houston. I never got a text so keep checking MMB the week before the flight.
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