Brief Upgrade Bites: Emirates’ Slashed Award Taxes; Qatar Airways Qsuite Fares Slashed; Air France Retires Entire Airbus A380 Fleet (and a Lesson); Remember FCF’s No Worries Widget; and Flash Sale Insights

THE GOOD & BAD WITH Emirates’ Slashed Award Taxes

Good news: As we covered in March, one of the most annoying airline habits is to charge huge taxes on flights for which you use your miles. So how about some good news for a change? Emirates offers one the world’s best First Class experiences, but FCF has not been a fan of their Skywards program because of high award taxes ($1,500+ to Dubai and $1,100 to $1,700 to Europe). Those taxes are just thrown on top of what is supposed to be a “free” award trip with miles. But thankfully, that changed in May when Emirates drastically reduced surcharges on award tickets.

Bad news: We checked more than 11 Emirates routes from the U.S. for First Class availability and found none! Is this a hustle? Lower the pricing and just pull all your flights from the shelf? Maybe I’m just being a wishful thinker (it wouldn’t be the first time), but there is First Class availability between Dubai and Kuala Lumpur. So I imagine it’s only a matter of time before seats are released to/from the U.S.