As I wrote about last month, Emirates First Class award booking policy changes almost ruined my plans for my trip in July. I made the pro-active move to book the route I needed to add on to my existing Emirates booking (Dubai-Bangkok) on a future date that it was actually available. My plan was then to wait until award space was available on the date I really needed and make a change to the booking. My reasoning was that date changes to First Class Flex awards are free, but if I didn’t already have the flights booked, I would be locked out of booking it in the future.

I’ve been following the availability for Emirates First Class awards on that route for the last few weeks and they generally seemed to make the First Class seats available 30 days out (UAE time). In fact, I sort of narrowed it down to them becoming available between 8pm and 8:30pm EDT (4:00-4:30am UAE time). There are two flights each day with First Class, one at 2:50am and one at 9:40am. In the end, I decided I preferred the 9:40am flight and a quick overnight in Dubai rather than trying to power through after I arrive on Emirates Gamechanger from Chicago around 7:10pm the night before. Beggars can’t be choosers though, so I would have taken either flight.

The way I was able to check availability was through Qantas, as they still have access to Emirates First Class award seats despite Emirates’ own members not having access without elite status. I could see each day that the award seats would show up 31 days out. I also kept an eye on ExpertFlyer seat maps to make sure the First Class cabin wasn’t totally full. The 9:40am flight on my required date had about 6/14 seats taken which should allow for availability to show up as I’d hoped.

As it turned out, the 9:40am flight became available exactly 31 days out. I called Emirates and was able to grab the flight I wanted on the day I wanted. There was no additional cost or change fee, although this is not exactly a cheap award booking at 178k miles plus $1200. At least for that price, I get 20+ hours in Emirates First Class and access to the First Class lounges at Dubai. Not too shabby!

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