kuroko

had the discussion several times and checked also with EK staff (a friend of mine had also the same problem)- ugprade at check-in was not possible even though I was standing next to my girlfriend (because i was not travelling with her). Not sure but if I recall a thread correctly mrtdxb had the same issue.

ft101

It was comments here on FT that made me post as I did. Hopefully others with recent experience can clarify.

kuroko

i hope nobody else experienced the same to be honest (does not make sense in my opinion anyway as long as I am present with my card).

subject2load

The OP will no doubt be back to clarify, but I'm pretty sure from his post that the tickets in J for his parents were booked as normal revenue, and that it was purely for the upgrades to F that he had been trying, in vain, to make use of his substantial balance of miles (I think he is experienced enough to have specified if this were not the case)

As for what later transpired at check-in .....we don't really know from the info given (so far) whether the refusal to allow the upgrades was a) specifically because the Skywards account holder was not travelling, and/or b) because they were allowing cash-only upgrades on the day (and that the discussion didn't even get as far as the identity of the a/c holder, thereby indicating a new trend perhaps ....)

mrtdxb

You have a great memory - yes, I did have the same issue or rather my wife did. She was at DXB check in with her sister and they refused to allow my wife to upgrade her sister as they were not on same flight. Using MMB for Flex tix or within the check in window for saver tix (prior to actually doing OLCI) both work fine if you want to upgrade someone with your miles even if you are not travelling but upgrade inventory has to be available at that time of course. If you have to wait until you get to the check in desk to get them to use other inventory for the UG it seems to be an issue if you are not on same flight.

ft101

Here is the source of my thinking that the cardholder must be present:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/emira...l#post22562059

The bracketed part of your post does not apply if we've understood the OP correctly. He was not present.

kuroko

I am still unsure if the OP was at the check-in or not ("At check-in I had them inquire about using miles to upgrade, and were told that it was not possible but that they could upgrade for the cash price of $1,500 per person"), however even if he was there as per EK it is not possible to upgrade passenger with your miles if you are not flying on the same flight (upgrade at the check-in). So as I understood the OP was at the check-in, that is way I raised the point about upgrade other people at check-in.

ft101

We will only know for sure if the OP returns. The language used makes me think he was not present.

Others have posted regarding successfully upgrading a third party at check in, despite your lack of success.

whimike

To answer this... It was a revenue J booking. My parents inquired about upgrading using miles, it was never stated whose miles would be used, they were told there were no miles upgrades, only cash. It never got to the point of the agent asking which account miles would be coming from.

subject2load

Ok, whimike, so that's pretty much in line with the assumptions I had made earlier (post #19).

I see this as a very disappointing trend.

EK basically said to your parents we don't care that you'd like to use some of those hard-earned miles after spending oodles of money with us over the years ; you either give us more hard cash or no seats in F for you

All well & good if maximising every last bit of profit is your SOLE motive ; not so good for anyone who has built up miles through past loyalty.

Dave Noble

Or could be viewed as Since we expect to be able to sell seats in 1st class we will not be allowing people to use points to do so which seems a very sensible approach by a company

Maximising profit is exactly what one should be expecting of a company

An amazing idea of selling seats by a financial scamming corporation unlike those bastions of profit in the US

Budley

Ah yes, but not where it leads to your best customers being screwed. Who knows, in the distant future EK may piss off enough of its Golds and Plats that they too may head into a downward spiral.

It's impossible to defeat the laws of gravity in the long term, and apologists for unconscionable behaviour won't really be welcome.

Dave Noble

Expecting that the airline will let seats go for points whilst there are people prepared to pay for them seems strange to me

It may well be the best customers actually buying the seats or last minute passengers booked in that cabin still able to change their flights

eternaltransit

This is predicated on the idea that EK define their best customers as being Gold or Plat and that they provide a significantly disproportionate amount of non-replaceable revenue.

EK definitely have the numbers on where their revenue is coming from in great detail, but we don't, so I can only illustrate a plausible scenario:
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EK may believe that there is no such thing as loyalty in the airline market - and that it's a fools game to cater to such a fickle subset of customers, which, although for other carriers might provide disproportionate revenue and margin, for them, they see that their premium class (or at least, high margin/profit) travellers are generally one-off, once a year, price sensitive and not even members of their FFP. They see that they operate in high population markets/catchment areas that have sufficient population depth for one-off, irregular premium travellers to fill their cabins daily with sufficient load.

Of course, there are loyal travellers, who spend a little bit more than the average, but they still believe that the loyalty, in the end, means nothing, and the things that most passengers tell themselves are actually just little soothing ego-massages to make them feel better about spending $$$. In the end, they will still pay the money even if they are a little annoyed, and if someone comes along to undercut them, they'll move. There may be people who are not really price sensitive and make decisions based on other factors mainly, but EK are happy with the tradeoff to lose those customers, because proportionally, they make up a very small number of their target markets.

So, the decision is then to compete on price and offer a product whose costs allow that price to be profitable. That means, not being the best at all costs, but good enough. Good enough that they can make people think that they are not being entirely ripped off and are paying for a quality (but not exceptional) product, but aren't travelling on a bargain basement cheap airline with fares to match. This is where their marketing budget comes into play - to sustain fare demand and to modulate the expectations of their passengers.

The conclusion for EK is that yes, Gold and Plat really don't mean that much, but it doesn't cost them much to create that system, generate profits from the FFP and retain some incremental revenue. But fight to retain it even if it, if it means sacrificing margin unnecessarily? Not a sound business case given their other ideas about their model.
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Remains to be seen if it will cause them problems in the future, but I suspect that EK are right in their conclusion that loyalty programmes and competing for this nebulous concept of loyalty is a fool's game, and that air travel commoditisation means that loyalty programmes need to move away from a special benefits, hospitality style marketing programme, to a more supplier/client rebate for business style relationship - which is what you are seeing with revenue based FFPs being introduced globally, from LCCs like Airasia's BIG points all the way to DL and UA with their revenue requirements for elite status.

If most passengers are increasingly treating air travel as a business decision with different suppliers competing for your business and you are looking for value for money for your requirements, instead of an active choice when deciding to purchase a luxury good where there are all sorts of different emotional factors at play influencing the perception of value - then it makes sense for the airlines to reward previous revenue as the hook (as you do in some businesses when you hit certain purchasing levels from a supplier over a year: rebates, better pricing) instead of hoping to capitalise on future revenue. It's just more sustainable overall and more transparent. It's a subtle shift in the power dynamic to the airline: a customer has to continually put the money down to get rebates instead of airlines continually trying for the lure of future business and then all of a sudden the buying motivations change: their investment in the customer turns out to be wasted money.

Budley

I think your post was well-written and properly thought out. In the main I agree with many of your thoughts. However there are one or two glaring concerns if I may be so bold to say so.

You mention AirAsia's BIG scheme. Have you ever used it? I fly AK/D7 quite a lot and have decided not to use BIG, as it's a waste of time and a bit of a scam IMHO.

As for other airlines, several have much better FF programs than EK (which really is pretty lousy in this regard). I'll probably not bother with EK Gold next year, which means I'll be giving EK less money (stands to reason).

As for UA, I just happen to be a lifetime Plat (as is my wife) with a million FF miles in the bank, so unlike many flyers, I have a few options.