[emiratesishorrible]

My husband and I booked business class tickets for our honeymoon. We had a connecting flight and found out that the first flight was delayed. When we asked the agent in our origin city to book us new tickets on the second flight so that we wouldn't miss it, she told us not to do that since they were holding the second plane for several passengers who were also connecting from the first flight.

When we got to our connecting destination, we found out that they did not hold the second plane, and were even scolded and talked down to for ever expecting them to hold it. Several passengers were telling the agents in the connecting airport that we only thought they were holding the plane because we were told by agents in the origin city that it would be held, so it wasn't just us.

Anyway, because we were now booking tickets for the next flight out much more last minute, we were told that all of the business seats on the next flight out were taken and that we would be downgraded to economy unless we wanted to wait yet another several hours for another flight. The agent told us that we would get a cash refund to reflect the downgrade which would make the bump down worth it, so we accepted. At one point while we were waiting for the flight to board, we found out that a single business seat had opened, but we were told by the airline agent that if we took that single seat we would no longer be eligible for the cash refund so we said no. All of the agents we talked to said we would get a cash refund to reflect the difference in value at the time of booking our business tickets, and all of them said that we would just need to contact Emirates customer service once we got home to get that refund.

When we did contact customer service after the trip, they said we had "accepted" the economy seats and so no refund was available to us. They also tried to argue that the economy seats actually were of greater value than our business seats if you went off the price the night of purchase compared to our original purchase months ago (ridiculous!). They offered us a meaningless amount of points instead or the refund. They REFUSED to acknowledge the fact that several of their agents told us we would get a cash refund to reflect the downgrade, and that we even said no to a single business seat to protect our refund because of what an agent told us.

This company is incredibly dishonest and unethical. I assumed that since they were an "established" airline we did not need anything in writing at the airport, but now i know better! This is not a legitimate or professional organization. In addition to completely mishandling the delay and then LYING to us, they also have no customer service number so you can only contact them over email...and it is very easy over email to just ignore what a person is saying and write your customers off. We saved for those business tickets and were completely ripped off. Emirates is horrible!