Dubai Connect hotel - but not if you book a Qantas award flight

[The Beast]

Emirates have become strict about the hotel formerly included for J pax who have booked a QF Classic Award flight. I am returning MAN-DXB-PER for travel in Sept/Oct 2018, and have almost 10 hours transit time at DXB. When I made this booking in late 2017, the option of the hotel was still available. Today I tried to finalise it. Although in the QF "Manage my booking" section a link appeared to a page for a hotel booking, clicking on this took me to chauffeur drive booking but no hotel. I checked with Emirates who told me a series of different stories as to why I couldn't have the hotel but eventually said that it was only available if I'd paid a full J fare or booked a Skywards award flight. I called QF who initially said that it was still available, but after half an hour mostly on hold confirmed the Emirates story. The chauffeur drive service is still active, but not the complimentary hotel. Brickbats to Emirates (a) for being stingy, and (b) for giving me the run around. Bouquets to the operative at QF who did his very best to be helpful and was genuinely embarrassed to have to deny us our hotel.

 

[kelvedon]

Has anyone else had any experience of this ?. Some 3 months after the OPs comments there is still no exclusion of U class fares for eligibility for Dubai Connect on Qantas website T&C’s

 

[The Beast]

Has anyone else had any experience of this ?. Some 3 months after the OPs comments there is still no exclusion of U class fares for eligibility for Dubai Connect on Qantas website T&C’s

Mysteriously this is now able to be booked again, despite my lengthy phone conversations a couple of months back with both Qantas and Emirates. The really annoying thing for me is that I booked the hotel with Expedia using a non-refundable rate, so I can't take advantage of the reappearance of the Dubai Connect hotel option.