I fly Emirates UK to Far East approx 11 times per year and I pay for this travel myself. I have been loyal to EK for the past 5 years partly because they give me gold status and the perks that go with it and partly due to their good service.

I managed to accumulate 142,000 tiers miles last year and am deemed a high value customer by EK, whatever that means.

I have just booked the first flight of 2010 and when I checked the new booking agent for milage I was majorly disappointed. Here is a brief summary of the miles I will earn.

MILES
16400 Skywards Miles | 6000 Tier Miles View Miles breakdown
Hide Miles breakdown

Skywards Miles Tier Miles

Europe (West) (GLA) -Far East (BKK) Saver 3000 3000
Emirates.com Bonus - Economy Class 1200
Miles Accelerator Bonus 14-JAN-10 GLADXB EK0028 ECONOMY 1000
Gold Tier Bonus 3000
Far East (BKK) -Europe (West) (GLA) Saver 3000 3000
Emirates.com Bonus - Economy Class 1200
Miles Accelerator Bonus 01-FEB-10 DXBGLA EK0027 ECONOMY 1000
Gold Tier Bonus 3000
Total Miles for Mr. Blacknight 16400 6000

The above flight is classed under the new saver catagory even although the terms of the tickets allow changes and stopovers. The price of this SAVER ticket was £659.

So my last trip in December earned me approx 13200 tiers miles and a total of nearly 23000 miles for the one return journey. This flight cost me £640.

The SAVER catagory to me simply means that EK are saving a vast fortune by having devalued their FF program and I am some 7000 tier miles and 6000 miles down on exactly the same flights and timing as before but also £30 more expensive than my already inflated December ticket.

If you then remove the 2000 miles bonus accelerator from the 16400 total miles it makes the reading even more bleak.

On average I pay about £520 - £560 per return ticket throughout the year so no only does it seem that the SAVER catagory is going to be more expensive by my miles earned are being devalued by approx 1/3.

I have followed other complaint threads with interest thinkg this wouldn't affect me too much but how wrong I was.

Maybe I am just unfortunate with my choice of flights and schedules but I really cannot see how EK are not going to loose a great deal of loyal custom as the true cost of devaluation unfolds to others.

Personally this now makes EK far less attractive to me and thus I will now conscider using alternative carriers where I wouldn't have before.

My moan is over feel free to comment.