Originally Posted by
Budley
I'm gold and am neither "captive" or don't have "authority". All of my flying comes out of my own pocket (being retired from the workforce), so I personally decide where to place my cash.
Being lifetime Exec Plat (as is my partner) with UA always helps and I have 1 million MP miles available to spend at any time. However, I have decided to also retain Gold status with EK because I fly to Europe from AU/SG quite often and find that EK can offer some cost-effective options. If I can also upgrade with points, then so much the better.
I'm certainly not wedded to EK in any way, and the quishy nature of their seats in Y/C does annoy me somewhat. But I am not a large person (neither is my female travelling companion), so unless there is a large person seated next to us it's not too bad. Also, I always ask to be seated next to an empty seat, so if the plane's not full I get a reasonable amount of space. And the free flowing Moet and French red wines do help a little.
That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. Emirates should try not to piss me off any further.
My point was EK doesn't need or likely doesn't want to go out of their way to give blanket goodwill gestures to their frequent fliers such as publishing a benefit of seat blocking/preferred seat allocation because they see it as an unnecessary opportunity cost with little/no reciprocal payback for them - I would expect they have some analysis about the habits and booking channels of their frequent fliers as measured by their FFP which shows them that seat allocation is not causing them to lose much business because of the factors above (aka, travel is booked by a corporate office/travellers are hub captives etc.) and that those who are like you (and me, actually) and make decisions about travel budgets are proportionally contributing not as much revenue as to make this worthwhile given the risks to them (as they see it). In short, I think if it came down to it, EK is totally willing to piss you and I off and lose our business because they think that other elements of their product/offer more than make up for this seat issue.