Saver fares are definitely not new and have seen them around since they were 1st introduced over a year ago

The scheme changed when it was revamped, but I see no difference today as to when it 1st changed nor have I found it to be a particularly negative change

south west pacific and have also purchased fares departing europe at the same levels as online

Then you have been missing something because there has been a change in which fares are classified as Savers. I don't know if you're only looking at J/ F tickets perhaps, but in Y it's gone from actual promotional fares being Saver to regular, flexible tickets being classified as Saver. And this change is most certainly recent.

Just flew on a fare that had a SAVER endorsement in the fare rules but showed up as FLEX when booking (see my earlier post on this thread ref: change in rules). FLEX miles were awarded automatically.

not that recently. The fares here that I see on the transtasman routes have had non refundable fares as saver for a while with it only being refundable ones that are flex. Also the fare basis has , for the TT routes, indicated saver or flex in the fare basis for a while ( e.g. LSVRRAU1 or QFLXFAU1 ) . Travel to London, the lowest fare bases which have cancellation/change restrictions have been saver whilst the refundable fares are flex

For my own travel I only tend to be concerned with business/1st ( and there have been saver business fares for a while ) but do arrange travel for other people and not found any major changes

They finally got to my regular route, DXB - SIN.

Thanks to the lovely combination of increasing fares due to increasing oil prices, and the flex/ saver changes, I would need to pay 60% more than I did 2 months ago for a flex ticket. At current prices, a flex ticket would cost 30% over a saver ticket.

I think this is where EK becomes uncompetitive for me. It turns out Etihad has decent timings even though they only fly 3 times a week. But changes cost AED 200 vs free on EK. But I get full miles on EY.

SQ is now the cheapest on this route, but for the same price as Etihad I can get a mileage accruing ticket. I hate SQ, so I know I won't switch to them, but this really has me thinking now. QR has great fares too, but only 50% mileage, a detour via DOH and terrible timings.

I could give up on having status on Skywards and still fly EK at the Saver fare level. But that's going to make EK boring. If I suck up and pay the extra for the flex fare, I'll be flying a lot less. The other thing I could do is burn miles, which should keep me going at least a couple of years.

Just looked up fares for CDG-ICN and return BKK-CDG, and it shows a combination of Saver/Flex for 9,000 miles. Interesting.... never seen this before....

It's quite common to have fares where one leg is flex and the other is saver...

oh okay, thanks. saw this the first time today.

+1

You summed it up perfectly. I am in two minds about forking out for the flex fares at an average of $500/600 extra or give up and focus on EY/QR. EY and QR are annoying with their AUH/DOH hubs and add to that zero mileage balance so Y flying for a while !!

I did some more research and a couple of interesting things came up.

1. Even though Etihad's booking engine says AED 200 per change and AED 500 for cancellation, the fare rules say AED 100 per change and AED 150 for cancellation.

2. The cheapest fare on Etihad earns full miles, but the fare is not upgradeable. The next higher fare which is upgradeable is still lower than EK's lowest flex fare.

I had the same experience last week, but this week on the same sectors , it showed saver miles while booking and also in the online itinerary

+1..
I managed to find a fare with one leg saver and one flex.. Checked the fare conditions and did a word to word comparasion of the same thru MS Word Compare.. The ONLY thing changes in the whole t&C"s was in the endorsement box where Flex was made Saver and in Flex it was valid for EK/IT and in Saver T&C's it was valid only on EK !!!!
No Other difference in any clause (including change fee, stopovers etc etc)
So this means same t&C and similar fares but 1/2 miles for the pax

I was in the T3 J lounge today so I took the below example of Flex and Saver having the same conditions to the Skywards desk ..
They said only complaints should be given online and please follow up in 1 week if you don't hear from them since they can get quite busy

The email ids they asked me to send the complaints is : skywardsgold at emirates dot com and customer.affairs at emirates dot com..

This is confusing and frustrating. If I try booking a DXB - SIN out tomorrow back end of the week, I actually get a flex fare showing for the cheapest fare. The fare has gone up from a few months ago, but that's justifiable given rising fuel prices etc. But then fare rules show Saver. I'm wondering if I should book a few of these just to be safe.

I had a similar experience some weeks back.. endorsement on the e-ticket and online fare rules showed saver BUT it showed flex miles online.. I also recd the flex miles for the trip without any follow up..BUT this has now changed..
IME, the fare rules were exaclty the same only endorsement was saver.. check post 161 below..
Maybe I misunderstood, but if u r getting it only for trips this week , then how can u book a few of these

I checked on a particular route i now fly and last week at the same fare it was showing saver miles and now at the same fare it shows flex fares online..