Hi Dubai friends,

Welcome to Week 12, Edition 125

Eid Mubarak 🌙

Wishing one and all peace and prosperity, especially in these challenging times.

Due to the ongoing situation in Dubai regarding Iran and the FCDO advising against non-essential travel to the UAE, these weekly editions will shift focus a tad.

Whilst the situation remains uncertain from a tourist and travel perspective, the editions will feature more ‘advice’ than ‘news’ to help better inform any travel decisions you may need to make.

Whilst you can’t beat your own objective research and news from trusted sources, here are some links and tips about Dubai that I hope you find helpful.

Please do check back past editions and Eat Drink Stay Dubai as there’s a lot of information, advice and links that will help.

PS. You can always email me here also.

Please note: some links in this newsletter may be affiliate links, and will be denoted with an asterisk (*). This is a link to a partner site that may pay me a commission - at no further cost to you - and if so, helps to support me & this newsletter. For more info, please see Disclosure and Policies

With everything unfolding in the region right now, I know you may have questions or concerns about upcoming trips to Dubai.

Whether you’re due to travel soon, mid-planning, or just keeping an eye on things — my inbox is open.

Flight connections, hotel bookings, safety questions, whether your itinerary still makes sense — drop me a message and I’ll do my best to help. If I can save you an hour of anxious Googling with a quick reply, that’s what this newsletter is for.

A quick note on capacity: straightforward questions I’m happy to answer at no charge. Anything more in-depth - a full itinerary review, booking/agent situations, detailed planning support - we can arrange a short one-to-one consultation separately.

Either way, don’t sit on a worry you didn’t need to have.

👉 Hit reply (or click this link) - I read every message.

If you’re looking to keep updated on the flight situation, Gulf News had status updates - however, news articles aren’t always updated or comprehensive.

Of all the UK media, I’d recommend The Independent if only because Simon Calder is excellent. They have a page updating the latest airline updates and what it was like for him to transit through AUH from Jakarta to the UK last Sunday.

A better way to keep on top of the flights is to check the official live departures (Dubai Airports here and AUH here).

Additionally, using flight tracking apps like Flighty or FlightRadar24 may provide more information about schedules, specific flights, routes etc.

If you have flights booked, please stay up to date via your carrier’s official channels, as Emirates has extended its current waiver for rebookings and refunds to 15 April.

DXB had two temporary suspensions of schedules this week due to incidents, and this had a ‘knock-on’ effect for flights in the air.

British Airways, Emirates and and Virgin Atlantic all recently suffered ‘flights to nowhere’ whereby they had to return back to departure points or divert due to disruptions.

This is a great read from Skift about the line between “can’t fly and won’t fly” and why airlines may not be returning to Dubai yet.(Archived page here)

Paul Griffiths, Dubai Airports CEO, says “we will bounce back very, very quickly”

Etihad Guest have reduced their Tier Qualifications by 25%, potentially making it easier to attain status.

Whilst airlines are reducing their operations to the Middle East, some are increasing frequencies to other destinations. British Airways, for instance, is claiming a 9% increase on long-haul route expansion, including Bangkok and Singapore, whilst Cathay Pacific provides additional capacity to Zurich and London.

It may be worth checking those ‘new’ flights because the quickest way to increase load factors is to offer competitive pricing.

Be quick, though, as there is a lot of demand for destinations other than the Middle East to go with the increased supply of seats.

As with airlines, the major hotel chains are offering waivers due to the situation in the Middle East:-

As we move into Eid, Dubai hotels are looking to boost occupancy via Eid and staycation offers, as the tourist market is understandably lower due to FCDO advice and other factors.

In terms of pricing, even without the offers and promotions, Dubai hotel rates are extremely low at present. On direct sales channels, such as Marriott Bonvoy, I’ve seen super-low rates (Grosvenor House, 500 AED and Marriott Marquis Dubai Creek below 300 AED).

Bear in mind, Dubai hotels tend to drop mid-May and then pick up around mid-September, and IF you were considering travelling to Dubai in the next few months, I feel this pricing is ripe for price matching or a Best Rate Guarantee (BRG) claim. I checked Marriott, and it appears specific properties are dropping prices rather than a general price drop across all properties.

For example, certain properties dropped even further moving out of shoulder season, whilst others didn’t pick prices back up until October.

Bear in mind, BRG only needs a small difference (1% if in the same currency, 2% if currencies are different) in identical rate conditions and will offer 25% discount on the matched price. Other hotel chains offer similar price matches, with different terms and potential discounts of 15-20%.

Whilst there’s lot of potential for deals on hotel pricing, there’s a lot of volatility in the market at present. It’s an opportunity, but also a risk, and there will be a lot of variables about how travel picks back up after this (fuel costs for instance).

Similarly, with restaurants temporarily closing in hotels, that may affect future operations as well as the ‘received vs perceived value’ of dining packages such as Half Board.

Two good sources of information regarding customer rights in these situations are,

Whilst these are UK-centric, if you’re looking for airline rights with UK/European carriers or routes, check out :-

I’ve listed these links because it’s imperative that, before you take any action with a travel provider, you’re aware of what your rights may be.

For instance, I’ve seen people jump to book other flights to get home in the belief they will get their expenses covered - but that’s not always true in all cases.

If you have a flight booked direct with an airline, it’s usually down to what they’re obliged to offer you, if they may ‘try it on’ and if they may offer goodwill or a discretionary waiver.

Emirates and Etihad Airways for instance, are non-EU airlines so EU passenger rights do not apply.

The tip here is - if you know your rights, you will know if the airline is ‘trying it on’. I helped someone earlier this week with Air Arabia, who initially offered a credit for up to 12 months. As they were flying from Poland, they were entitled to EU passenger rights - so they tried to contact again, and were then offered a refund rather than a credit.

If you have booked at least two components with a travel provider/agent, such as a flight and hotel together, please check this post on Eat Drink Stay Dubai for links and information relating to CMA and PTR 2018.

This will help you if you have to deal with an agent, and it should help further if your agent/provider is ABTA.

If you are due to pay a deposit to travel to Dubai, and the trip dates fall outside of current waivers, it could be worth pondering what your ideal outcome is.

What you need to be mindful of is that you don’t actively cancel in advance of being offered the option to, as this could be considered a ‘disinclination to travel’ and could affect your chance of your deposit back.

I only learnt this recently, but ABTA have a Code of Conduct that stipulates “it’s also a requirement of ABTA’s Code of Conduct that members alert customers to the existence of FCDO advice before the contract stage. “

This may seem insignificant, but if the agent did not, you may be able to use this as leverage if you’re struggling to deal with an agent for a resolution. It may not provide a tangible benefit, but if the agent was aware you were ‘savvy enough’ to know this, and it was something they did not do, and if (yes, I know that’s a lot of ifs!) raising it with ABTA could help your case, they may have bit more goodwill towards you to avoid that situation.

If you follow my previous advice of, if you’re looking for any discretionary decision, you should be dealing formally with the Directors rather than customer-facing or sales teams.