Skywards 2010 Program Changes: 8 Months In, Thoughts and Comments
 

I thought it might be a good idea to start a thread summarizing how everyone feels about the program changes introduced at the beginning of the year (2010). We've now had 8 months of flights, and it would be interesting to see how people are faring given the very lively debate back in Dec 09/Jan 10.

My summary:

I have flown 65 segments with EK since 01/01/2010.

I have accrued 106222 tier miles and 177182 award miles. (The odd numbers because some tickets flown in early 2010 were booked under the old rules in 2009).

All my tickets were economy flex, except for one round trip (CAI-DXB) booked in saver.

My flights have been Europe, Africa, Asia, and mid and near east sectors.

By my calculations, if the old program were stilling running, I would have accrued 110482 tier miles and 159333 award miles.

So, in conclusion, I lost some tier miles in the new program, but gained award miles (mainly due to award accelerator). It still seems a good program. I have obtained operational upgrades 5 times (on 65 segments) and upgraded myself with miles another 5 times.

It would be interesting to see what other's thought of their experience this year?

Doing the same amount of flying last year, I earned a lot more miles. This was mainly due to the online booking bonus and global double miles offer, which while not part of the programme per se did affect the mileage balance last year. This year, even with the accelerator, bonuses are only offered in some months.

Tickets have all been Flex as they were mainly ex-UAE, so no issues on that front.

I really haven't seen much difference. I fly pretty much only Flex (only one Saver fare so far this year) and the Flex earning rates are within 10% of the actual mileage rates on every route I've flown.

Not much change on earning/status front. I usually do 2 RT/year in J from LAX/SFO to India, which keeps me at Gold (rest of my flying is on UA/LH/CO).

Base earning went down from ~10K per one way flight to ~9K, but the J premium went up from 1.5 to 1.75. Award accelerator was worth less than the online booking premium, so overall my tier miles are slightly higher for the year and my award miles are slightly lower.

What's REALLY been annoying is how much harder redemptions/upgrades have gotten, hence my thoughts below at:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/emira...al-scam-3.html

As my weekly destination is RUH (from DXB), it has changed dramatically. I get 2500 tier miles in F per segment.

Prior to change it was a lot less, I think sth around 1000 (I didnt fly to RUH prior to change).

I lost out a decent amount, even though I made it to Gold for the first time this year.

Most of my travel is ex-US travel to DXB. US-DXB routes have seen the biggest devaluation. I previously earned over 8100 miles for IAH-DXB, and now I earn 7000. Not to mention that I earn only 8000 miles when doing my once-every-two-years trip to BOM from IAH. That would previously earn me 8100+1100 miles.

Upgrade redemption to the US, even on Flex fares, is now a total ripoff. It would be easier to swallow the increase in mileage needed for upgrades if the inventory was still C, or even I, but now with the switch to D, upgrade availability has all but disappeared on the TATL routes. Not to mention that D inventory used to be a lot better only a year ago.

Finally, ex-IAH Flex fares have been difficult to come by lately. It took about 30 minutes on the phone with an agent once to force a flex fare, and even then that fare was $500 higher than the saver. Not worth it.

Skywards, and some of the related changes at EK (particularly upgrade inventory changes) have pretty much driven me away. Making Gold this year was a total fluke and I have no intention of even trying to requalify next year. I'll be flying EK only when I have no other choice.

I did 40+ flights till the end of June and managed to get 55000tier and around 80000miles of award miles. I had nearly 8 or 9 op-ups, where 4 of those were DXB-TIP flights (in total 6).

All my flights were econo-flex and actually I did not see a big difference with the past.

My opinion is, as it were for the last couple of years, EK and skywards are pretty nice.

And one interesting event in those flights was on a DXB-IST (EK123) flight, where we had to return back to DXB from Jordan at a low altitude, due to a crack in one of the cabin windows. Cabin pressure could not be maintaned, therefore they returned back and combined the flight with (EK121).

Though my friends have found it to be scary, this is part of the life if you are a real frequent flyer.

Nice and safe flights for all.

interesting! Which aircraft was it, just being curious!

It was a 777-300ER.

I guess s..t happens to me regularly, since two years ago again on a DXB-IST flight, just before the landing, and again a 773, ran through a bird flock.
It was extremely a rough landing. And the next day I read on the newspaper that the radome was damaged and the plane could not return back. The return flight cancelled and the passangers were sent with the next days flight.

Your analysis ignores redemptions and relies on the (discretionary) accelerator bonuses.

In my case award redemptions (typically from NZ) have gone up massively, so even if I earn a little more (not the case so far) then I'm still a lot worse off.

Yes, you are correct. I always pay for flights and use miles only for upgrades. In this regard, maybe I have been lucky. When I had miles, upgrades were always available to me (over the phone if not on-line). I have not even done a search for mileage redemption for a flight, so I'm clueless about that. I may also be lucky that second daily CAI-DXB (4 times a week now) usually has accelerator bonus, and that is my main segment.

I've got no real complaints.

My YTD Tier Miles are 121,876 and Skywards Miles 254,251 (which includes a one off year end Gold Bonus of 25,000 miles which was carried over from 2009).

All my flights are SIN-MEL - bar one SIN-MUC in J early in the year. I think of all the SIN-MEL flights, all bar 2 were in Y (90% Flex fares).

I've never redeemed Skywards Miles for an award flight. I churn and burn thru miles quickly for Y-J upgrades.

Op-ups have been very generous out of SIN, but I have been lucky with high loads. The staff in SIN are also excellent to deal with.

My only real gripe is that I think the SIN-MEL upgrade award is too expensive at 30,000 miles each way. I'd also like EK to adopt a feature like other airlines where you could be offered the option of paying for a higher Y class fare, which would result in less miles being burned for the upgrade.

Business Rewards is a joke, but I'm going OT. Apologies.

I reckon I will exceed 200,000 tier miles by the end of the year, looking at my current travel schedule. I've easily got 2 x flights to Aus per month between now and December. Depending on how my football team does in the AFL finals, I may be in MEL each week during Sept!

And some idiot client has now given me a project in India, which means a monthly trip to HYD :p

And I know I harp on this - but there is zero incentive to continue to fly EK past the 50,000 tier miles. At least UA reward you with SWU's for exceeding the qualification criteria.

But bang for my buck, EK is my preferred carrier.

Well summarized. I think I am in Hyper's situation, where the value of Skywards has been much more devalued for those in the US (redemptions and upgrades have also become insanely hard).

Btw - does anyone have any good idea on WHY EK won't have a third tier?

PS: For SIN - HYD, are you going to go via DXB? I know SQ has dropped the HYD route, but MI still goes direct right?

I completley agree with there being little incentive to fly once you have reached the 50'000 mile tier. That said, with 231'520 Tier miles this year, I guess I carried on!

I have not really been looking at the difference in miles, from the previous 9 years of being gold.

One thing i do like (not wanting to sound elietist) is the amount of complaints we hear from people not being able to acheive silver or gold as easy as they did last year.

It does make the lack of an extra teir slighly more acceptable.

I have received more OP-Ups this year than any other year so far (other than 2001 when i was bumped on almost every flight, but there was only a small handful of Golds at the time)

I have no complaints about the new program!

There should be something like if you reach 100,000 tier miles, you get more Super Gold Bonus miles. There is no incentives beyond 50,000 as DTB says. Somebody put it here somewhere that the BC Lounge is what a zoo! Funny but I partially agree. :p