Emirates F award space – does it open at short notice?

[Y.in.the.sky]

Hi all

Have been tracking Emirates F awards for the last 3/4 weeks as I haven’t paid attention to them before, having never travelled on EK.

Sadly and stupidly the flights I wanted in early March have now gone and I’m wondering if they have a policy for releasing close in award space?

Thanks

[meta]

Yes, they will usually release them a week before or so. For Stansted flights, it’s 2-3 days before. There is no guarantee though.

[Rob]

When the 777 F Suite was going to Stansted you could ONLY book it close in. To do my review, I had to fly to Dubai with no return ticket and hope it opened up (as it did, and to be fair on 90% of days it was appearing).

When we were in Dubai last Christmas, we changed our return flights twice due to the UK lockdown making a return unappealing. Emirates kept on opening Business Class seats at 1-2 days notice (we needed four of them) and we were able to change twice.

And … kudos …. it was easy to call Emirates to make the change AND there were no change fees.

[DonLee]

Rob Burgess wrote:

When the 777 F Suite was going to Stansted you could ONLY book it close in. To do my review, I had to fly to Dubai with no return ticket and hope it opened up (as it did, and to be fair on 90% of days it was appearing).

When we were in Dubai last Christmas, we changed our return flights twice due to the UK lockdown making a return unappealing. Emirates kept on opening Business Class seats at 1-2 days notice (we needed four of them) and we were able to change twice.

And … kudos …. it was easy to call Emirates to make the change AND there were no change fees.

Hi Rob, was that for cash ticket miles upgrade later or classic award ticket? As I can see 4 award tickets everyday although I don’t have sufficient miles, do you think those award tickets are actually there? Don’t want transfer all my MR points in then find out there are no tickets to book.

[The Original Nick]

I was looking at reward flights lastnight LHR – DXB , DXB – LHR and I did check STN to and I found flights available right out until September in both Business and First. The taxes were only around 400 AED which surprised me.

[Rob]

DonLee wrote:

Hi Rob, was that for cash ticket miles upgrade later or classic award ticket? As I can see 4 award tickets everyday although I don’t have sufficient miles, do you think those award tickets are actually there? Don’t want transfer all my MR points in then find out there are no tickets to book.

Classic awards.

You can see Emirates availabilty without having the miles and the Amex points transfer instantly – there is no risk.