Bloggers, you can cry me a river! Your gnashing of teeth over the changes Emirates have made to their first class reward availability is already old. Looks like another of those loopholes has been closed and probably with good reason.
Snagging a first class seat with points is always good fun. I’ve done it several times, taking a British Airways Boeing 777 to Washington and taking their Airbus A380 back. Most recently I did it on Qatar Airways, taking their Airbus A380 from Doha to Sydney and doing the same to return. What’s not to like?
What happened to Emirates first class reward availability?
For those that haven’t heard, Emirates have restricted their first class reward availability. This means fewer people can access those seats with points. Other airlines do the same, such as Air France with their snooty La Première. In fact, many airlines do it by stealth. You need to be extremely lucky to be able to snag a reward seat up front on Qantas for example, yet it’s “not restricted”.
Why does anyone care?
This is actually a very good thing for members of the Emirates frequent flyer programme. It means the good seats are no longer available to anyone who has applied to be a member of the programme. After all, it’s not like you need to jump through any hoops to join.
Overall Thoughts
The shock and horror seems to be confined to people who game the system. A person with 45 frequent flyer cards and 58 credit cards who transfers points around solely to save money is, quite understandably, not going to be happy with this. They are also far from what I would call a loyal frequent flyer.
For actual Emirates frequent flyers, this is a positive step in keeping the first class reward availability to a smaller pool of people. That means more opportunities to redeem hard earned miles for the good seats.
What do you think of this change at the Dubai based carrier? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or queries, please leave them below.
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Featured image via Emirates.
Food pic by Shahram Sharifi on Airliners.net via Wikimedia Commons.
Seat image by Lefterismakris2007 via Wikimedia Commons.
I disagree. If this will truly benefit Emirates elite members I could see it as being a valid choice but unless Emirates elites want to use miles to fly up front but are prevented from doing so by people joining the program simply for a first class redemption who beat them to the punch then no way.
Additionally, Emirates award prices are not exactly bargains to begin with and that doesn’t even consider the onerous surcharges they tack on to any flight that touches Dubai. Perhaps I’m mistaken and Emirates had cabins that were packed with full fare passengers or elites trying and failing to upgrade due to outsiders taking away cherished availability but I rather suspect not. It would have been vastly better for Emirates to reserve a couple of seats for elite upgrades until the last moment and otherwise earn income from selling otherwise empty award seats in first class to whoever. That would increase the halo effect of Emirates first class and the airline as a whole by actually letting people experience how good flying Emirates first class really is.
Well, that’s a fair call. Without being able to see any data, it’s all a best guess from both sides. I guess we will see if there are any interesting reports as it all shakes out. Thanks for that – always happy to read your opinions. A valid take, that’s for sure!
This is a logical move by EK as they restrict overall award availability. This will not create more availability to EK Skywards members. This is EK drastically reducing F class award availability, and don’t want it to hit Skywards members harder than it already will. Sorry, Ken. You may also be crying a river.
They won’t create more award availability, but it means there are the same number of first class seats available for a smaller pool of people to access. That is not a bad thing at all!
I doubt it will change the award availability for ek elites because the ones who have access to us credit cards would also have the status via a card…. And ek has always been stingy about releasing first class award for most valuable routes either way
Oh it certainly wouldn’t increase availability, but it would make what is available easier to come across as it won’t have already been snapped up. I think most airlines are pretty stingy with award availability in First Class.