Legoman
Active Member
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2015
- Posts
- 604
Just booked an EK flight and looking to upgrade to business with points. The manage booking page gives a couple of options:
1) Auto-upgrade. As soon as an upgrade becomes available we'll allocate it and deduct the relevant fee on that day from your points balance
2) Upgrade alert. We'll send you an e-mail and SMS when upgrades become available so you can apply via manage my booking
Now, being somewhat of a sceptic as far as airline morals are concerned, I tend to prefer to keep as much control with me as far as possible. Whilst shopping for flight options I have quite literally seen the quoted points charge for an upgrade on Emirates to business class from Economy Flex Plus vary from 60,000 points to 120,000 points in less than 24hrs, and then back to 60,000 points again in the subsequent 2 days. Call me paranoid, but it does rather seem that the points they charge for upgrades varies in an instant as soon as their website algorithm sees someone looking or making an inquiry.
Example 2: When I was choosing my flights, the quoted upgrade points required was 60,000 and 78,000 respectively. Right after I had committed and paid for the flights less than 30min later, these figures had gone up to 78,000 and 101,400 respectively. I don't think this is pure coincidence. The website has just seen my booking and it's seen that I'm looking at upgrades, so the price is dynamically wound up like Uber surge pricing.
Assuming this theory based on real world experience is accurate, would signing up auto-upgrade be a foolish thing to do and only ensure that I am charged the maximum possible points for an upgrade they can possibly get away with? Would I be better off sticking with the alert/notify option instead and managing my upgrades manually as I see fit depending on the points price of an upgrade on the day?
Would love to hear the recommendations of anyone who has used these two upgrade options on Emirates and how it worked out for you to get business class.
1) Auto-upgrade. As soon as an upgrade becomes available we'll allocate it and deduct the relevant fee on that day from your points balance
2) Upgrade alert. We'll send you an e-mail and SMS when upgrades become available so you can apply via manage my booking
Now, being somewhat of a sceptic as far as airline morals are concerned, I tend to prefer to keep as much control with me as far as possible. Whilst shopping for flight options I have quite literally seen the quoted points charge for an upgrade on Emirates to business class from Economy Flex Plus vary from 60,000 points to 120,000 points in less than 24hrs, and then back to 60,000 points again in the subsequent 2 days. Call me paranoid, but it does rather seem that the points they charge for upgrades varies in an instant as soon as their website algorithm sees someone looking or making an inquiry.
Example 2: When I was choosing my flights, the quoted upgrade points required was 60,000 and 78,000 respectively. Right after I had committed and paid for the flights less than 30min later, these figures had gone up to 78,000 and 101,400 respectively. I don't think this is pure coincidence. The website has just seen my booking and it's seen that I'm looking at upgrades, so the price is dynamically wound up like Uber surge pricing.
Assuming this theory based on real world experience is accurate, would signing up auto-upgrade be a foolish thing to do and only ensure that I am charged the maximum possible points for an upgrade they can possibly get away with? Would I be better off sticking with the alert/notify option instead and managing my upgrades manually as I see fit depending on the points price of an upgrade on the day?
Would love to hear the recommendations of anyone who has used these two upgrade options on Emirates and how it worked out for you to get business class.
