Bagged another free upgrade!

It's due for me to return home for the Lunar New Year.  It was bad enough not to have internet access in my apartment and having the office internet access blocking Gmail.  I was thinking how on earth am I gonna check my mails!  Fortunately, some kind neighbour forgot to secure his wifi network and I managed to borrow his connection.  However, the service is intermittent and I had to constantly poll his wireless router to gain access.

Also thanks to his connection, I received an email from Emirates that I was invited for an upgrade from Economy to Business class for an additional top up of AED990.  Sounds attractive and I heard that business class in EK is comparable to SQ, so I decided to pay for the upgrade.  Unfortunately, the payment process failed due to some technical fault on their end but my card was charged.  I called them up and request for a reversal charge which they did so promptly.  Called up the bank and verified that the reversal was indeed executed.

A few hours later, a customer service consultant called me up and said that I could upgrade for free.  Initially, I thought it was due to the technical fault and they compensated me with a free upgrade.  However, the lady replied that it was partly due to the technical fault and partly due to the fact that I had booked a full economy fare and that I was a first-time Skywards member (Skywards is their frequent flyer program).  Hence, this upgrade is also partly a welcome gift for me.  I was delighted to learn of this good news that I simply decided to give up cooking my dinner today and have my dinner at the EK business class lounge instead!

One word describes EK lounge in Dubai: HUGE!!!  It takes me a whole 5 minutes to walk from one end to the other end!  It is at least 10 times bigger than the SQ Silver Kris lounge in Singapore!  They had 6 F&B areas and 3 bar counters serving alcohol.  Coupled with at least 200 tables, 50 slumberettes, 500 chairs, 3 shower rooms for each gender, 20 TV areas and 2 business centres, I'm just freakingly amazed by this massive lounge they have here.  Even as a loyal Krisflyer member, I can say that NONE of the SQ lounges can match up to this EK lounge in terms of size and capacity!

Took many photos of this lounge (and perhaps more when I board the plane later), I shall sort them out when I'm back home and upload them over the Lunar New Year on FB.  Food variety in the lounge is about the same as SQ.  Have yet to assess the lie-flat seat as I'm still waiting to board the plane at the lounge.  Hope it turns out well.  The entertainment system should be comparable to SQ's Krisworld, judging from the numerous positive reviews found online about EK's ICE system.

It's only 12.15am!  Another 2.5 hours to go before I take off. If not for the Dubai Metro stopping its operations at 11pm, I would not have came over so early.  This Metro closes earlier than any other Metros in other metropolitan cities!  When I mention 11pm as the closing time, it means the last train reaches the terminal at 11pm and not the last train departing the starting point at 11pm!  From the station right outside my apartment, the last train leaves at 10.15pm and I arrived at the airport at 10.50pm, a whole 4 hours before departure!

All EK flights depart from Terminal 3 at Dubai International Airport, a terminal reserved exclusively for EK flights only.  The departure hall is also divided into 2 parts, economy class area & first/business class area.  I went to the first/business class area and it was literally empty!  There were like 15 check-in counters for first class and another 20 check-in counters for business class.  There was no waiting required on my part.  I was attended to promptly by an Emirates check-in staff.  My take-home luggage was pretty light though, 12kg.  Thanks to my mum who brought home a big bulk of my load last week when she came over.  Immigration was smooth-sailing with no one in the queue.  It seems as though I had booked the whole airport for my exclusive use.  I then boarded a series of escalators leading up to the duty-free shopping and departure gates level.  The interior architecture was impressive and there were many duty-free shops.  Dubai has really invested a lot on tourism (which also partly explains why they're broke now).  Spent about half hour walking through those shops and bought a stick of chewing gum to exercise my jaws.

Came through to this EK lounge at 11.15pm and headed for the shower room immediately as I have not showered for the day.  Was out by 11.30pm and grabbed dinner thereafter.  Now having a drink while trying to find something to kill the remaining 2.5 hours.  Seems like eternity as there's nothing much I can do in the lounge except to eat, drink, read magazines, watch TV and surf the net.  I can go on blogging but this entry will soon turn you off and you may probably stay away from my blog as there's nothing else I have to talk about other than the surroundings of where I am now.

Oh well, wish me a pleasant sleep on board later.  Hope the seat is comfortable enough for a good night's rest.