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I’m flying to Tanzania in October, and the airline with the best flight times is Emirates, with who I’ve never flown, and am not currently a member of their skywards loyalty scheme, but I do have 110,000 Amex MR points which could be transferred.
A search on flight prices for my date brings up the following:
Basic economy (only upgradeable at check in for 98,000 pts each way) – £850
Economy flex (‘eligible for upgrade’ at 55,000 points each way) – £950
Business (basic fare not including lounge access or chauffer service) – £2870 (one way with economy the other is about 1850.It’s 12.5 hours in the air, so business would be great, but I can live with economy and I’d rather pay less! Obviously the ‘sweet spot’ is to book and later upgrade the Economy Flex fare with points, but how likely is this to be available based on experience? (Dates are a weekend and likely to be popular as some people’s half term).
Any other discounts/thoughts welcome!
I researched this last year, and got as far as buying refundable Economy tickets.
It seems, even if Emirates never release award tickets London – Dubai for advance upgrades, if there is any space in Business remaining at check in one can take it for points. Two caveats:
– sometimes seats are available for full redemption on the Emirates website but not available for upgrade with points ahead of time
– no idea how, or even if, checkin upgrade would work for a multi sector itinerary such as yoursI’m keen to try this if I have another trip to Dubai, but never got to test it as I found a full redemption with KLM/AF and booked with Virgin points instead.
Thanks – this is really helpful. I’ve found I can get business reward flights out and back on Qatar/KLM but they are at less convenient times – so going to give it some thought. Seems that you can’t book KLM to Africa via Virgin which is strange, unless I’m doing it wrong.
Check out the Telegraph story today and you might not want to use Emirates
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