HelloKittysMum

As my flight needs are changing (from mainly SE and S S Asia to Southern Africa) and EK are a less direct option I'm likely to shift to BA or SAA becuase of this. Usually manage to get to gold (although not last year) in economy saver only but won't with this change.

evilbrian

Having done a few quick calculations across the various routes I travel, and compared the upgrade costs from Economy pre and post Feb, it appears that EKs intentions regarding the new 'enhanced' fares, when compared to the old fares, is as follows:

Old Special Fares Pre Feb: - Low cost, reasonable tier miles and we'll give you a shot at an upgrade at check-in

New Special Fare post Feb: - Low cost, crap tier miles, no upgrade possible so you'll stay in cattle class mate.

Old Saver Fares pre Feb: - more expensive than Special, reasonable tier miles, same access to D bucket as everyone else except 'specials' with reasonable cost to upgrade

New Saver Fare post Feb: - similar cost to pre-Feb, same tier miles, no access to D bucket seats for upgrade until check-in, and we'll now charge you an insanely huge increase in miles if you're silly enough to do it.

Why? Because if you want to upgrade we want you to book flex fares instead. Why is that? Because the old Flex Fare upgrade rules are now pretty much the new Flex Plus rules, and the new Flex Fare upgrade rules are effectively what was the upper echelon of Saver rules, but at higher ticket prices of course.

To put it another way, virtually everyone has had their rewards pushed down one level (or more in the case of Saver) but will be charged the same price or more. The most dishonest redefinition of 'enhancement' I have seen in 30 years of marketing.

sadiqhassan

So if we buy a ticket before Jan 31 for travel after Feb 1, will the "old" upgrade levels still apply? The website FAQ is unclear IMO

If I can do a check-in upgrade for the original level of miles after Feb 1 for tickets bought before Jan 31 it might be worth it to buy some of my upcoming trips ahead.

evilbrian

Yes sadiqhassan - Buy now and upgrade before Jan 31 and you can do it at the old rates, assuming inventory available of course.

m3red

We all know d won't be available by 31 jan for most of us the question is if you buy now do the old upgrade rules apply ie flex man dxb will be 25k to upgrade not 39k (y to j).

RBFF10

The only bright spot I found on this new calculator of my previous trips is if you fly F from CPT to LAX (which I will not be doing)...then even as a lowly blue you earn 500 more skywards miles than before! Otherwise its a net loss across the board for earning alone, unless Flex Plus just happens to be the same price as old flex...which isn't going to happen. But don't worry we get to use more miles to upgrade... Delta Skymiles 2015 is actually looking good comparatively....

edy4eva

This is from QF update to their programme for earning on EK flights.

Flex Plus is actually ERY. W gets pushed down to Flex. BGMU become flex (if they aren't already that).
Since Skywards and QFF are well aligned in terms of earning structure, it's safe assume that the changes aren't THAT dramatic (save for the inability to upgrade special fares, and the massive increase in upgrade cost for savers/flex)

evilbrian

U, B & M were all standard saver fares last week but W was economy flex, so no change on that last one.

edy4eva - you and I are regular trans-tasman travellers...considering that there are almost always empty sets in J on those flights, I can't see this new policy doing anything but increasing the number of empty seats in that cabin on that sector, unless the new price of BGMUW is dropped considerably from where W used to be.

m3red

I think I'm going to be disappointed at the cost of flex plus!

Need to book a f/j to japan still not sure whether to buy now or wait until after these rules start.

If you book now and get say a flex out in f and a savers return will it be the miles at the time of booking or the new miles?

I can't help but worry special j will be the current saver and the saver will be more.

I'm guessing this will free up space in j to sell as revenue as people won't have this amount of miles to burn and the cost is prohibitive.

39k to man from 25k ouch!

edy4eva

Fares posted earlier this year have not decreased. One of the routes I am used to booking one way is actually now up to almost 600 dollars (to get into flex plus) -used to book W class which is now around 400.

My circumstances have changed drastically so I doubt I'll rejoin EK in the near future, save for F either using points or through some creative routings

TaipeiWang

looks like you got it now! I pay currently 55kNT$ for a W ticket with 100% milage, if it's gonna cost me 60 or 65 in the future I can fly bloody turkish in Y+ for 59k... at least the seat's gonna be better. .

Just checked prices with ITA Matrix in April, EK is at the very end for pricing, I can now fly CX and LH with one stop in Shanghai or HKG for 33K while EK is 48k, all the lowest fare class of course. I just won't have lounge access though

Ahmed777

That's disgusting! The best Y-J upgrades were DXB-LHR for me as they were somewhat reasonable at 25,000.

I like how they conveniently left these increases out of the email.

JFIVienna

Its worse than that now Ahmed.....to get the upgrade for 39k you have to buy the new Flex class which is now 2 notches away from the cheapest fare....so its sure to be more expensive than the old flex class.

Miles accrued is now also reduced for all classes.

It's disgusting how Emirates can try and sell this as an "enhancement" when in fact its the opposite.

w00t

If I weren't based in DXB and this hub is so convenient for me, I'd likely switch now to QR.

jackiedada

From the current earning structure, I looks like I'll have trouble making it to Gold in my next qualification

And hard to digest that most of the miles in my account just turned into vapor overnight...