Originally Posted by
stimpy
What means more to the airline is the revenue from paying first class customers who expect a certain image from an elite airline. The sort of people who do not want to sit next to a backpacking freeloader. EK is not the only airline that attempts to maintain some level of exclusivity. The good airlines do not normally offer easy access to first class.
Think calling someone whom has earned 100k+ air miles a "backpacking freeloader" is a tad harsh.
They could have two tiers of points; credit card and air miles. Let them be combined for non-F seats, but keep F rewards for genuine air miles only. Isn't the whole point in a loyalty scheme to reward those whom fly regularly with you?
To me, the issue with reward seats is that some people can earn them very easily using credit card spending (myself included, cheers EY).