Thanks for yourthoughtful post
I deliberately put down my thoughts straight as possible to get frank guidance which you have helpfully provided

(1) The business I am in, travel is the main expenditure but is mostly paid for by clients on a cost reimbursement basis Global senior mangement is remarkably relaxed about J travel and I tolerate up to 20 per cent divergence in quotes(but not on hotels and other things which come out of revenue) The tradition here has been to let things roll, but as I am an obsessive (why else would I be here) on this I pay attention to it in personal time Call me a nerd or weird, but thats how it is...btw the miles I gave you are J miles (double actuially flown) actual mileage is half that..sorry!

(2) My travel people get us discounts on TAM but not much else And TAM does not fly to many places we do So we use other *A especially for second leg travel from Europe, and in the circumstances TAM is being quite reasonable

(3) I am indeed contemplating fishing for a bribe. Its quite a common bribe in the travel industry; when we had hotel delas we would negotiate a list of senior personnel eligible for room upgrades for instance (I was then not high enough on the food chain to be one of them :-))

But take my question as pertinent wrt just my individual travel Would my record not justify at least a callback from EK?

(4) JJ/LA does not help me as we travel minimally in SOuth America We are a global operational unit run out of Brazil for complicated corporate reasons

(5) On the Spouse Card, very true. Poor reasoning on my part. Thanks

LH does not negotiate access to HON circle already found that out. Of course BA never does to Premier but both give good value BA to its longstanding golds and LH to its senators with vouchers -- a reasonable number and no need to negotiate. TAM gives nothing but, as I said did negotiate

I would be interested in your views on the general question of whether I am right that EK is giving least value to its regular J flying Golds relative to others for the reasons I adduce..full J lounge and J cabin because of easy GOld qualification flying Y but no commensurate privileges to J flyers viz F lounge and F upgrades.... no vouchers, nada?