Come fly with me: Card strikes gold

Of course, being a gold-card holder on Emirates or any other airline has its benefits. It makes you feel privileged, gets you upgrades when flights are full and generally makes everyone behave a whole lot nicer. Oh, and it allows access to the Emirates lounge. But it is when you want to fly to Heathrow but tickets are not available and you get to the check-in counter and ask the lady if she could try to change your sector with no real hope of her being able to help, and she says it might just be possible that you feel like doing a little dance with your pom poms.

That's exactly what happened to me on a recent morning in Dubai, when the slightly stern-looking Sheila tried her best and got me the last seat left on the slightly earlier Heathrow flight. And what's more — the biggest bonus — she was trying to get me an upgrade. I did, for a moment, wonder why … maybe she was just nice!

She asked me to wait for ten minutes, during which I told myself not to get too excited, as there was, of course, always the possibility that I would remain in economy — but I couldn't help letting my hopes soar, especially as I remembered that the morning flight to London was an A380 Airbus. I was sure I'd heard this somewhere. Well, this would be even more of a treat! I heard something — was that my name being called — and ran to the counter. Sheila smiled pleasantly and said "You can go now", handing me the boarding pass.

A quick glance — 26G. All the flights I had been on told me 26 was economy — business was always up to row 10 or maybe a few more. "OK, thanks, so no upgrade?" I asked, trying to show some gratitude that she had changed my sector — after all, business would have only been an unexpected bonus. "Yes, that's business class," she corrected me.

As I turned away and started walking towards the security check, I let out a small "yes". Upgraded to business class and my sector changed, when I had booked this one-way ticket on my miles … now that was reason enough to be excited!