Emirates Flights to Dubai

Saint Sonner

I made a boo boo - I was suppose to do book flights to Dubai last week for start of November - been looking at them for a while with Emirates (through Skyscanner) and they were within my budget at £380 direct - I only got round to try and book them now and today I see the prices have jumped to £555. Why is this?

Also would I be better holding off to wait and see if they fall in price again?

sebastianlieken

I see flights with AirFrance and KLM for those dates at around £340...

fly on the 4th, back on the 11th? £340

does it have to be emirates?

Saint Sonner

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah I see that I was just looking a direct flight and comfort.

I haven't been with any of those airlines - Would the planes be of similar standard?

sebastianlieken

well emirate are nice yes, but for a saving of over £200 per person the AirFrance and KLM options are definately worth consideration.

Air france for instance would be a small aircraft, an Avro RJ85 to charles de gaul, and there you would be boarding 777-300ER to dubai. the avro wouldn't be the most luxurious now - but still fine in all respects, the 777 is the same as what emirates would be likely to use

What you do is you click the "Select" option in Skyscanner where you can find out what the flight number is.

Then go to this link (Seat Guru) You tell it the airline, the flight number, and the date and it will tell you what aircraft.

if it's a pair of you going over, would £400 be better spent on a pair of flights or on uprating your accomodation over there? or spending money sure.

Saint Sonner

sebastianlieken wrote: »

well emirate are nice yes, but for a saving of over £200 per person the AirFrance and KLM options are definately worth consideration.

Air france for instance would be a small aircraft, an Avro RJ85 to charles de gaul, and there you would be boarding 777-300ER to dubai. the avro wouldn't be the most luxurious now - but still fine in all respects, the 777 is the same as what emirates would be likely to use

What you do is you click the "Select" option in Skyscanner where you can find out what the flight number is.

Then go to this link (Seat Guru) You tell it the airline, the flight number, and the date and it will tell you what aircraft.

if it's a pair of you going over, would £400 be better spent on a pair of flights or on uprating your accomodation over there? or spending money sure.

Thanks for all the info its greatly appreciated. Your right about the extra cost - I think its just that I had the opportunity to book them for 380 and didn't do it and now that's gone is what's annoying me.

I might sit it out another few weeks and see what the prices do - what's your opinion on whether prices will go down or up? I was thinking that they increased prices in line with there publicity of the extra flight from Dublin and hoping that this will fall again in a couple of weeks?

FURET

Emirates have a good reputation and I've used them a lot as it's my employer's policy to do so, but I personally don't think they live up to the hype.

Their prices have jumped a lot recently. I'm not sure why (for me it's a good thing though!) but it may be because Emirates are now taking a more circuitous route when flying from Dubai to Europe.

sebastianlieken

There are plenty of "tips" online that state that the cheapest time to book a flight for a long haul flight is 5 weeks before the flight. Others say 6 weeks.... 7 weeks... 8 weeks.. 22 weeks...etc. The point is that there's no universal optimum time to book. All destinations will have a different "sweet spot" to book. This is not in itself fixed as places (especially dubai) have seen a big upturn in popularity. So maybe 7 weeks before used to be the best time, but now that more people are booking to dubai it's alot longer because the available flights are selling out sooner. Therefore it's possible that ticket prices will only continue to go up from here, in fact that is the most likely (save for some variation in terms of a few pounds)

Online travel agents (which skyscanner scans) buy tickets in bulk from the airline at reduced prices. This online travel agent then has this limited amount of tickets to sell so when supply is down and demand is up, guess who pays the bigger price. you.

I wouldn't wait any longer - especially with emirates who are a very popular airline. but that's just my opinion.

steve-o

Saint Sonner wrote: »

I made a boo boo - I was suppose to do book flights to Dubai last week for start of November - been looking at them for a while with Emirates (through Skyscanner) and they were within my budget at £380 direct - I only got round to try and book them now and today I see the prices have jumped to £555. Why is this?

Also would I be better holding off to wait and see if they fall in price again?

An Emirates sale just ended, hence the fare increase, and in the near future I can't see the fare going any higher than it is now. They'll have another sale soon enough.

The Etihad sale ends on Sunday, and they still have the same fares that Emirates had. The only downside is a 90 minute bus connection to Dubai (included in the fare).

Saint Sonner

steve-o wrote: »

An Emirates sale just ended, hence the fare increase, and in the near future I can't see the fare going any higher than it is now. They'll have another sale soon enough.

The Etihad sale ends on Sunday, and they still have the same fares that Emirates had. The only downside is a 90 minute bus connection to Dubai (included in the fare).

I see that - what are the thoughts on that????

FURET

Saint Sonner wrote: »

I see that - what are the thoughts on that????

My parents did it last January. It's perfectly fine.

Saint Sonner

Thanks for all the info - booked flights direct from Dublin to Abu Dhabi for £379 (€480) each with Etihad.

My brother lives in Dubai so he will pick us up at Abu Dhabi - Didn't realise the two cities where as close and as he says booking a direct flight saves a lot of hassle!

Are Etihad a good airline?

Zonda999

Not quite as large an airline as Emirates but certainly as good an airline in terms of service.

Whats more, both airlines use the 10 abreast (3-4-3) Boeing 777 but Etihad depending on the flight also use the Airbus A330 which is 8 abreast(2-4-2), which is definitely more comfortable.

Saint Sonner

Zonda999 wrote: »

Not quite as large an airline as Emirates but certainly as good an airline in terms of service.

Whats more, both airlines use the 10 abreast (3-4-3) Boeing 777 but Etihad depending on the flight also use the Airbus A330 which is 8 abreast(2-4-2), which is definitely more comfortable.

I'll be able to review it for you anyway - I see we get the A330 outbound to Abu Dhabi and the 777 inbound to Dublin!

Ed_Stephens

Etihad are a good airline but Abu Dhabi is heaving at the seams with the amount of people going through it, delays seem to be very common there these days. But they have an excellent entertainment system and the food's pretty decent too.