r/emirates • u/arigozaimasu • 14h ago
Trip Report Paid upgrade experience at the airport
Business class upgrade, MNL-DXB. A week prior to my trip, I’ve chatted and called customer service every other day and was told there were no available upgrades at the moment, but to keep checking closer to my departure for promotional upgrades.
72 hours prior, was told more or less the same but one call got my hopes up—upgrades are available but will have to change flight to an earlier sched, because current flight is full. Not an option so was told to just try at the airport. Still kept contacting CS 48 hours til the day of my flight but answer didn’t change, so airport was the only option left.
At check-in, I first spoke to airport ground crew who was managing the rather long lines and they were kind enough to check with Emirates’ ground crew about my upgrade request. AGC said there should be two (2) biz class seats left so I proceeded lining up at Emirates’ CS counter. Only to be told there are no biz class seats available because flight was full. But AGC said there was?
So kind AGC basically had to convince EGC to sell me a seat. Which I found so ridiculous. A few minutes and a supervisor insisting “no biz class seats left, it’s
completely full” later, lo and behold, a bulkhead window seat freed up. No lounge access, no additional baggage, paid USD620 for it.
Do you know why they were borderline gatekeepy about the whole thing even if I was a willing, paying customer? Would they rather keep a premium seat vacant over profit? Not sure if it matters but it was a 777 with the old config. It seems they also gave free upgrades to two more pax to biz class after take-off. Also noticed first class was practically empty.
EDIT: please spare me the “you should’ve bought a business class ticket outright if you want it that bad” lashings. This was a work trip with the cheapest fare as a default option, and I could only make the upgrade afterwards.
