Originally Posted by
ung1
So if I was doing this and wanted to give DXB based customers and edge, I'd just give them a 10% tier miles bonus.
EK has chosen to do this the other way round. Of course, it is frustrating because they reduced earnings for everything except intra Gulf flights (DXB - JFK is 6000 miles when it's actually 6800 flown miles) and often it is inconsistent (DXB - SIN is 7000 miles and 32,500 for flex upgrade while SIN - MEL is 7500 miles and 30,000 for flex upgrade).
So yea I don't know on what basis they decided on the numbers (well they've tried to ensure you just miss qualifying for a tier), and while they may have been trying to simplify things with the whole zone system they have only complicated it more.
Having said that, airlines like QR, BA do award zone based tier points and maybe EK wanted to do the same thing without complicating it with tier points and miles. I really don't know.
It's rare that I am able to ever find an error in Ung1's comments - but I did want to clarify one thing from the above example
DXB-SIN-DXB is 7,000 miles ROUND TRIP (not one-way). And yes, EK is being a bit cheeky as the actual flight distance is 3633 miles one-way.
SIN-MEL-SIN is 7500 miles ROUND TRIP (or 3744 miles one-way) - so they are being quite fair here.
The logical explanation re why it takes more miles to upgrade the SIN-DXB sector over the SIN-MEL sector is probably all down to premium load traffic and seat availability.
The 3 flights per day between SIN-DXB are already at capacity, whereas the one daily SIN-MEL is always relatively light in J. That's just my personal opinion.