The Trick To Upgrading Emirates Flights With Miles, Including To First Class

In this post, I’d like to take a look at the best way to score an upgrade on an Emirates flight (and no, it’s not dressing nicely and saying it’s your honeymoon). I first wrote about this several years back, though I’d like to take an updated look at the reality of this, since things do evolve. There’s no denying that this method has become more popular over time.

I’d argue that Emirates offers the single best opportunity in the airline industry for upgrading flights on the day of departure, including securing last seat availability for first class. I think this is especially worth revisiting given the new restrictions on redeeming miles for Emirates first class, which now requires Skywards elite status.

The best way to upgrade Emirates flights with miles

Emirates Skywards arguably has the industry’s most generous policy when it comes to upgrading flights on the day of departure with miles. Long story short, the airline lets passengers upgrade with last seat availability, meaning there are no capacity controls — as long as a seat is still available, you can typically upgrade to it shortly before departure.

Personally, I think this is most exciting for business class to first class upgrades, for a couple of reasons:

• Nowadays Emirates Skywards elite status is required in order to book an award ticket in first class, though it’s not needed if you’re upgrading
• Emirates sometimes doesn’t release many first class award seats, especially if multiple people are traveling; fortunately business class award availability is much easier to come by

Let’s take a look at the logistics of this upgrade opportunity.

Why not just upgrade Emirates flights in advance?

Before I talk about upgrading Emirates flights on the day of departure, let me mention that you can also upgrade Emirates flights in advance, with identical restrictions and mileage requirements. So I by all means recommend requesting an upgrade in advance, as sometimes upgrades may even be confirmable at the time of booking.

Why isn’t that the focus of this post, and why is the “hack” to upgrade on the day of departure? Well, upgrades in advance are capacity controlled, and if they don’t clear at least 48 hours in advance, the request is just outright canceled. That means you don’t end up being waitlisted for an upgrade at the airport, or anything.

What kind of Emirates tickets are upgradable?

One thing that makes Emirates unique is that all tickets booked through the airline are upgradable, both in advance and on the day of departure. So even an award ticket can be upgraded to the next class of service.

The major restriction to be aware of is that tickets booked through other airlines (including award tickets booked through partner programs) aren’t upgradable, since they’re not on Emirates ticket stock.

One other restriction worth being aware of is that children ages eight and under aren’t allowed in Emirates first class via mileage awards or upgrades, so they can only get into the cabin on cash tickets.

How many miles do you need to upgrade Emirates flights?

Emirates Skywards has a mileage calculator on its website, where you can search a specific route and find out how many miles you’d need for an upgrade, award ticket, etc. So to figure out how many miles you’ll need to upgrade, you’ll first want to figure out the type of ticket you’ve booked, and then plug that information to the calculator.

For example, let’s say you book a Flex Plus business class award from Newark (EWR) to Athens (ATH) for 87,000 Skywards miles.

You’d then want to go to the mileage calculator and enter those details…

As you can see, to upgrade from business class to first class on a Flex Plus ticket, you’d need 39,000 Skywards miles one-way.

Now, I should mention that if you can find an outright first class award, that will typically be a better deal (this requires elite status, and of course there needs to be availability). For example, on the same route as above, you’ll pay 102,000 Skywards miles for first class, compared to 87,000 Skywards miles plus 39,000 Skywards miles for the upgrade.

How should you request a day of departure upgrade?

Emirates allows day of departure upgrades with last seat availability. More specifically, don’t expect that you can do this 24 hours in advance via online check-in or by phone. Instead, this actually needs to happen with an agent at the airport, as it’s an airport operations feature.

So if you want to maximize your odds of securing an upgrade with miles, I’d recommend arriving at check-in as early as possible, since these upgrades are typically on a first come, first served basis. When you get to the check-in counter, just inform the agent you’d like to upgrade with Skywards miles, and they can take care of it for you.

They might have to make a phone call or ask a supervisor, but it should be a pretty straightforward process. If you don’t upgrade at check-in, you can also make the request in an Emirates lounge, at the gate, or even onboard the flight, as the purser can directly process a mileage upgrade if there are seats available.

Do you need to have sufficient miles in advance?

I imagine that many people looking to upgrade Emirates flights may be moving over points from transferable points currencies. So do you need to have those miles available before you request the upgrade, or can you see if there’s availability, and then move over the points?

Personally, I’ve had no issues transferring points to Emirates Skywards on the spot from other points currencies. That being said, I try to be prepared and considerate. I make sure my accounts are already linked, and I literally go to the transfer page and am ready to “submit” the request when I show up at the counter.

While transfers aren’t always instant, they are most of the time. So there’s some gamble if you wait, but I haven’t had issues with this. If you are not going to move your miles in advance, at least try to be considerate and be ready to go, rather than trying to figure everything out at the check-in counter.

Are there any catches with this Emirates upgrade method?

I feel confident in the above information, though I should add a couple of caveats:

• Of course not all airline employees are equally well trained, and airlines also sometimes use contract workers at some airports; so agents at outstations might not always be informed of this, and I’d always recommend looking for someone in an Emirates uniform, and/or escalating
• The only circumstances under which there might theoretically be capacity controls on upgrades is if not enough food has been catered for all passengers in a cabin; this would only be an issue if a lot of people upgrade on the day of departure (for example, if the first class cabin goes from two to eight passengers), and you can also generally just agree to forgo the higher cabin’s catering and receive the upgrade (though even then you’ll probably still get the improved catering if it’s available)

Bottom line

While most airlines offer upgrade opportunities of some sort with miles, I’d argue that Emirates Skywards’ upgrade program is one of the most lucrative. You can request an upgrade in advance, and if it’s not immediately confirmable, it can be waitlisted until 48 hours before departure, at which point it will be canceled.

If that fails, the real trick to securing an upgrade is to make the request again on the day of departure, either at the airport or onboard. Not only can you upgrade award tickets (which very few airlines allow), but you can even get last seat availability (which most non-US airlines don’t allow).

This is a great trick when you consider that Emirates business class award availability is often easy to come by, while Emirates first class award availability can be tough to find, and on top of that, requires elite status. With this strategy you can snag even the last seat in an Emirates first class cabin with miles.

If you ask me, Emirates first class is way better than business class, so if you can snag an upgrade, it’s absolutely worth it.

Have you ever tried to upgrade an Emirates flight with miles on the day of departure?