Personally I don’t think this is quite as horrifying as the guy who set up his “merch shop” in the Emirates A380 shower suite (though it seems like the airline was in on that), though this is cringeworthy nonetheless.
A YouTuber (with “only” about 7.5K subscribers, so this isn’t some mega-YouTube star) uploaded a video a few days ago about “SNEAKING INTO BUSINESS CLASS,” which shows him self-upgrading on Emirates. Some people will no doubt say “cool, good job,” while others will view this as a pathetic attempt at stealing (I’m more in the latter camp).
The YouTuber flew from Dubai to Bangkok, and first tried his luck at check-in.
“I am like extremely tired, I’ve been in Dubai, then I’m flying to Bangkok. Is there any upgrades available to business?”
“Only paid upgrades available.”
“There’s only paid?”
“Mhm.”
“Is there any complimentary at all? There’s nothing you can do at all?”
“Complimentary nothing available on this flight. You have an extra legroom seat now.”
Then when he got to the gate he tried again.
“Is there any potential of an upgrade to business class?”
“If they are upgrading then first they give priority to Skywards Gold and Silver cardholder.”
“Is there anything you can do at all?”
“No. Next time.”
I have to give it to the Emirates employees for their friendliness, because I’m sure they get asked this all day long. At the same time, I feel like the joking encouragement of saying “next time” was probably counterproductive, because you know he will ask next time.
It’s simply a myth that airlines will upgrade people for asking. While operational upgrades are quite common (especially on Emirates), there’s a priority they use, and often it’s handled on the back-end so it’s not even the gate agents processing it directly. So I feel like the odds of this working are about the same as the odds of going into a store and asking if you can have something for free.
But then when the YouTuber got on the flight he told his seatmate about his plan to upgrade to business class, and then midflight, after the service, he did sneak into business class… and he managed to stay there till landing, or so he claimed (I’m not totally convinced).
Here’s the video:
Membership is free and takes no more information than commenting as a guest. Earn status points for good contributions, and see fewer ads as your status grows.