Dear Alex,
I have gold-tier status with Emirates’ Skywards loyalty programme and I redeemed some miles to fly from Dubai to Los Angeles and back in first class on October 1 (the original date this new route was due to commence).
Now I’ve been contacted by Emirates who say they have delayed the start date of the Los Angeles route, so I cannot make the trip. Is there anything I can do about this? Do I have any rights?
Sanjay Amarnani, Dubai, UAE
Alex replies:
Emirates is only obliged to return your miles and refund the taxes, fees and charges you paid. The point to note is that even if Dubai were to provide the sort of air-passenger rights we have in the EU, you wouldn’t qualify for compensation as you were holding a free ticket. Compensation, where available, would only be awarded to fare-paying passengers.
Clarification (February 2009):
Several readers have taken me to task over the reply I provided to Dubai reader Sanjay Amarnani, who is a gold tier member of Emirates’ FFP. He had booked a first class award ticket on Emirates’ inaugural non-stop flight to Los Angeles on October 1 last year.
Readers may remember that Emirates had to postpone the route launch because of late delivery of B777s from Boeing. But the new start date was inconvenient for Amarnani so he cancelled.
In my reply, I suggested that Emirates had no legal obligation to pay compensation – although the carrier might offer something on a goodwill basis – because Amarnani was using a non-revenue award ticket. My advice was based on the fact that Dubai, unlike the EU, has no official passenger compensation schemes.
Some readers believed I was referring to all award tickets, even those for trips departing from EU airports. I must stress that passengers using award tickets for flights departing from EU airports still qualify for passenger compensation should anything go wrong.
