Skywards Gold
 

just out of interest does anyone know how many skywards gold members there are?

Far too many,probably tens of thousands.

Yep. For a long-haul airline like EK, a 50K threshold for Gold-status is just too low.

As I say every single time this topic comes up:

EK is far from being just a long-haul airline.

Well, they don't treat Golds like a king, that's what paying to fly F is for. There's a few things they could do, for the select few that fly a lot on EK despite qualifying for Gold several times over.

For what it's worth, I have NEVER been "treated like king" by Emirates, including the 20-30 F flights and untold J flights over the last 3-4 years. EK has fantastic hardward (mostly), but truly dismal software. Fact is that EK repeatedly has made it clear that they don't really give a damn if I (or anyone else for that matter) flies with the airline. They are taking an extremely short-term view - and for now, they have plenty of business.

Hear, hear - exactly right. Your views mirror mine.

I would say they are no better or worse than BA in terms of soft product- nothing mind blowing but not that bad either.

If they had dismal software as you state then I would find someone else to flywith - let alone get to Gold with them!! A Fantastic hardware can only go so far when flying every other week

Some insights from the purser recently on RUH DXB

On the flight there were:

A) Share of Gold members on the aircraft
92 Golds in Y
20 Golds in F

B) New Elite level
4th level Platinum to be announced on the 24th of this month. He had no further information about benefits, thresholds. He said that "invitations will be sent out soon to eligible members"

This is exactly what I was able to retrieve. He sounded very confident on this information.

Here's hoping for something exciting, though an FA told my cousin, in F, that Golds always got free upgrades, so I'd be a little skeptical about that.

Had exactly same information, the announcement will coincide with the 25th anniversary of Emirates. Only difference was that it will not be a Platinum level.

What aircraft was it? Total capacity? 112 golds - I hope that was an A380!

It was a 2-class config 77W!

How could there be 20 golds in F there is no cabin that I know of with 20 seats in F!:rolleyes:

Flights to Saudi operate 2-class with First and Economy however the aircraft used is 2-class Business and Economy set up. The config will be 42F 400Y which makes 20 gold card members in First class a reality.