Looks like EK has silently jacked up prices (atleast in Y) by 30 to 36% for all sectors. Most of the fares that I could see (from EK-India site) are Flex fares, which used to be Saver fares about a week ago.

This could be seasonal.., but considering that their immediate competitors (QR/EY) are still cheap, their move is unilateral and bold.

I was raving about EK being cheap and affordable in threads of other forums just few days ago... my mistake!

i concur,etihad and Qatar are the cheaper option

C has also gone up by 15-20%.

The REAL PROBLEM is that every ticket I can book today has the same exact prices as 3 weeks ago, but now you earn HALF the miles and HALF the tier miles all while paying the same exact price!

This is completely and utterly unacceptable! They have literally just flipped a switch and changed the vast majority of flights from flex to saver, while keeping the prices EXACTLY the same and screwing up 10s if not 100s of thousands of fliers!!

Ramifications?
Twice as hard to reach Gold or Silver (lounges will start emptying out)
Twice as hard to earn miles (fewer upgrades or flights using miles - EK gets to milk your cash for those now)
More expensive to upgrade flights (you need significantly more miles to upgrade a saver booking)
More restrictive tickets (charged for any changes, under Saver conditions)

I'm starting to see the point of the European carriers. No airline can get too big.

Emirates has gotten HUGE and is now REALLY going to cash in on its customer base. Add to that the change to Gold (no longer allowing you to guest in even one passenger unless you fly Business) and all in all its a clear sign from EK that they no longer need nor give a damn about their customers.

I for one will write in to complain, and if you care about your cash and your hard earned miles (which will now be less useful given that the vast majority of sensible bookings will be saver) you should write in too.

Imagine if Starwood now gave you "half a night" or "half a stay" towards Gold or Platinum for the same rates you usually pay????

If nothing is remedied I will not fly EK unless absolutely necessary.

Over and out.
J

It seems that their cutting down on golds in the next few years.

I don't know if an airline can cash in on their customer base because

1. Most travelers just pick the cheapest airline for every trip they make, irrespective of who they made the previous trip on.

2. A significant majority won't realize the change/ don't care as long as they are getting the cheapest fare.

On a side note, moderator please merge this with existing threads on the same topic.

It certainly appears that this is how they plan to introduce a new elite tier......except it will still be called Gold

Just looked up a roundtrip to SFO yesterday and it was a flex fare but today it went back again to Saver for the exact same price.

I'm seeing the same thing. Fares I posted about that were Flex (albeit with Saver in the fare conditions) are now Saver again.

I think it'll be a while before we get the true picture of how it's all going to settle out.

Has anyone been able to establish a surefire method of booking Flex flights online through the EK website?

I was checking out some fares on EK site.. The miles which show during flight selection can be considered final or will the saver and flex changes post ticket booking apply ?
Am asking since as mentioned here and in other threads, there seems to be many discrepancies in the T&C's and miles shown for the same fares..

If it displays flex then you have a case for claiming the miles if they don't credit it. However they can always argues that fare conditions overrule and that its your responsibility to read it.

Having said that, I booked a ticket that displayed flex and had saver in the fare conditions and in my Skywards profile - tier status summary displays my future earnings as flex and I'm confident of getting it. They obviously have a system wide glitch that will affect many of their customers and I can't imagine them pissing off everyone with saver credits.

I believe that they should honour the flex miles.

I have put my travelling with EK on hold for now and will be travelling with BA.

Can't trust EK now.

hmmm..
will keep a print screen of the current booking page just in case.. thanks for the replies..

My next ticket between SFO and CCU is now Saver instead of Flex.

Skywards was always an inferior mileage program compared to LH, but now it is just plain ridiculous. It will now take something like 14 round trips CCU/SFO to get one Std Award in business.

Looks like it is back to LH now. Good bye EK.