Pity EK looks after QF WP better than QF does.
not had one upgrade in 5 years as WP
and I fly international J (A380) quite a bit
They might as well operate a budget airline...
My experience with EK that is different to my more limited experience with other carriers is that they will oversell Y with intentions to people to not show and/or upgrade people from Y->J & J->F if needed. And that they tend to oversell more often than not because they refuse to charge a premium for flights at the last minute where other carriers will ramp up rates in the 48 hours prior. They also seem to choose how much they will allow a flight to oversell 14 days out from the flight itself - and manage the available inventory on a daily basis - I often see flights that are sold out for months, always have Y inventory open up again 14 days out.
On my EK432, at check in an hour before it opened was one person whom also didn't have a pre-allocated seat, who had only purchased his QF booked and flight numbered fare 2 hours prior to boarding his JQ flight in Vietnam to SIN the evening prior, claiming his JQ-EK-QF flight was thousands of dollars cheaper than any other option he had including with Qantas on QF51 for his urgent trip from Vietnam to Melbourne. Which to me made perfect sense in my experience, is that EK don't ramp up prices and intentionally oversell Y to upgrade some to J.
EK flights are generally full, as they are a go to for people at the last minute as their is no price gouging from EK at the last minute - another aspect that drew me to fly with them in the first place - and then the overselling risk of Y has very favorable odds of Y->J upgrades. However they fight quite hard to prohibit any upgrades to F if there is no paying PAX in F already on the day. Seeing F empty is something I am quite accustom to.
EK will only upgrade as many people as needed to find the spare oversold Y seats. I have also sat on enough completely full flights in Y with spare if J to know that the times I am upgraded, it is because I looked favorable to the load controllers as the better person to upgrade because they needed my Y seat for someone else because they oversold Y.
So Kefci2000 - Upgrades from J to F on EK happen, but are more rare than a Y-J upgrade - but upgrades on EK happen because they oversell, and more than happy to offer standard rates to PAX to oversell the day prior. This is something QF never allow so the risk is low for QF to oversell. I looked at flying QF129/130 in November, and went from $900 to $2,200 because I left booking it to the last 48 hours. Back to cheapest option which was EK BNE-SIN, then to PVG with MU.
Awesom Andy - While I know your comment is tongue in cheek, EK are far from a budget carrier, they have a clear commercial strategy of running their flights as full as they can by offering competitively priced fares with full service in Y that is both fun and a step above others like with their ICE system for IFE but also to be seen as a luxurious option with their J & F product and attract as many full fare J & F customers as they can - and upgrade Y clients who will blend in with full paying J & F clients and not dilute that experience for them when they oversell Y.
