Have to agree with you.

Reply in response to my feedback
 

Here is the reply I got from Skywards in Mumbai:

====
Dear Mr. XXXX,

We acknowledge your e-mail dated 13th April 2011.

We appreciate your comments and suggestions and value your feedback

This is the first major change to the programme during its ten year life, and it is in response to the feedback we have received from members of the programme,
and to align the Skywards programme more closely with the Emirates business.

Tier miles and Skywards Miles will now be earned based on the fare purchased. Flex fares will earn 100% of the miles, and Saver fares will earn 50% of the miles.
We request you to visit our website www.skywards.com for more information on these new concepts.

The new and unique Skywards Mileage Accelerator offers a special selection of flight bonuses throughout the year, giving members the opportunity to earn more Miles
and view promotions for the coming months. This allows you to plan your upcoming travels and maximize your mileage accumulation.

We continually strive to improve the Programme to meet our members' expectations. Skywards is one of the few programmes that provides Miles (including tier miles)
on all fares, highlighting that all customers are important to us.

We recognize the changes do affect members differently, but we wish to reassure you that the new programme has many excellent features to help maximize the
Miles you earn and the progress through our membership tiers. You will have more choice and more control over how you choose to earn and spend your Miles,
especially with relation to the fares you choose to purchase.

We value our customers and we hope that Skywards will continue to enjoy your support in the future.
====

They have basically decided to screw everyone.

No news there then.

:)

I wish they could offer more details on this proactively .. ;)

Oh, do tell:eek:

i edited my earlier post to make it clearer.. i meant i wish they would offer more info themselves.. our seeking does not seem to help much :(

Thats true, but FWIW I've sent feedback to EK that due to these changes and the lounge access reduction, i'll be off to other carriers in future. :(

So just now if I go to emirates.com and attempt to book a return flight DXB-SFO in economy for AED 7955 I get 14,000 Tier Miles and both legs are labeled as Flex under miles earned. However when you click fare conditions it says
"THE ORIGINAL AND THE REISSUED TICKET MUST BE ANNOTATED - NON-END/SKYWARDS SAVER/ - IN THE ENDORSEMENT BOX."

I also have a booking I made which still shows flex miles in "manage your booking" but on the eticket it says "NON-END/SKYWARDS SAVER/ *BR-EK*"

This raises 2 questions:

Do we earn flex miles based on what we saw when booking and what we can still see in manage your booking?
Why are we seeing flex miles but saver in the ticket?
What is the difference between NON-END/SKYWARDS SAVER and NON-END/SKYWARDS SAVER/ *BR-EK*

Lots of questions, no answers from Emirates. I am holding on pulling the trigger on AED 25,000 worth of bookings until I'm 100% sure I will get all the miles I always used to get, which the website still shows!

So what do I do now ??
 

Hmmm.. So i booked a ticket with EK for travel in 10 days.. Saw the itinerary from EK site, showed flex miles.. booked thru corp TA for same fare.. Ticket says the following ''
NON-END/SKYWARDS SAVER//VALID ON EK/NON-END/SKYWARDS FLEX/
Ongoing shows class B and return class E..

In the online site and also in skywards miles shows for the whole journey are still flex and tier miles as that for flex..
So something similar to question by jayleb.. :(
To note this was not a cheap fare.. Lowest fares in this sector ( CCU - DXB - DME) are about INR 48k.. this was INR 69k..

The short answer is that if you think you are confused, the people at Skywards are too. EK continues to make it impossible to guarantee that when one books travel, it is going to be a flex fare. If one segment is saver, the whole ticket gets endorsed as saver and you will get a multitude of answers from Skywards as to how many miles you will actually earn. It has been 16 months now since the implementation of the "new, improved programme" where you earn less and have to spend more to get an award. With improvements like these, you are better off finding a new airline. Until people switch to an airline that provides more transparency and actually trains their employees or contractors to understand their own rules, they will continue to pull this kind of thing. Give your money to another airline and perhaps then somebody at EK will actually pay attention to the customers that give them their profits.

yes, but my ticket shows both saver and flex as mentioned below..
and unfortunately for me, the options from my location CCU are quite limited and EK has the best options mostly.. :(
IIRC, there was earlier some discussion ( am trying to search for that thread) on different fare classes and whether they are saver or flex..that should make it little clearer..

The issue is that EK does not use specific fare classes as most airlines do to differentiate between saver and flex fares. In fact there could be 2 B class fares or M class fares that are almost the same price but one is flex and one is saver--even in the exact same market. Of course, unless some kind of override by specific fare basis code is done by a travel agent, you are always going to either unnecessarily pay a higher fare or end up with a saver ticket. They just have not thought through the practical implementation of this. Even DL which by many counts has a horrible booking engine can get the "book me in a XXX class or higher" if you want to get full miles right.

As stated before, if you find EK is most convenient, then you will have to put up with the fact that you will not necessarily know whether you will get full or half miles. If that is an acceptable trade off, then go for it. If not, look elsewhere until they can implement a system which actually works and is understandable by both their customers and their employees.

hmmm.. seems I will have to wait for the flights to get credited to know the exact situation :(..
hv kept the print screens of the current mileage shown nevertheless..

The Skywards Terms and Conditions define "Skywards Flex Fare" and "Skywards Saver Fare" as:


"Skywards Flex Fare means an Emirates commercial fare which is not subject to the Skywards Saver Fare restrictions (defined below);

Skywards Saver Fare means an Emirates fare which is subject to any eligibility restrictions relating to purchase (including, but not limited to, 'students'; 'seniors', 'seaman'; 'missionary'; 'cruise'; 'youth'; 'companions'; 'groups'; 'inclusive-tours'; 'air passes') and/or has a limited sales period (a 'must purchase by' date), and all fares sold by other airlines for journeys partly flown on Emirates;

7.3 On Qualifying Flights a Member will earn 100% of Base Miles when he or she purchases a Skywards Flex Fare and 50% of Base Miles when he or she purchases a Skywards Saver Fare. Paper tickets will accrue only 50% of Base Miles, irrespective of the fare purchased. Miles earned contribute to both the members Skywards Miles and tier miles accounts."


I suggest finding a Flex Fare on the online booking itinerary with Saver Fare on the Fare Conditions. Then find a Flex Fare on the online booking itinerary with Flex on the Fare Conditions, and compare the content of the Fare Conditions side by side.

If they are equivalent (except for replacing the word Flex with Saver) or substantially similar, then you can argue to Skywards you purchased a Flex Fare, since the Fare Conditions were not subject to "eligibility restrictions", as defined in the Skywards Terms and Conditions.

Edit: An analogy would be the act of purchasing apples. Suppose there are only two types, red and green. Skywards defines Flex as "any apple which is not green", and Saver as "any apple which is green". Skywards did not define what constitutes a red apple, but by implication (since there are only 2 types) an apple of questionable colour cannot be green if there's proof it's equivalent to the other type of apple, and if it's not green, then by Skyward's own admission it's defined as Flex (amended)

Come back to LH CL!

Am sitting in the FRA FCL on my way to Mumbai, and the UA/LH combo is just awesome with being able to use SWU's to u/g to F on LH subject to availability - which is completely fair and makes sense that you can't confirm these in advance, but that you can get them at the airport.

With the addition of CO and the EWR-India non-stops, UA/LH just blows EK out of the water for residents in the US traveling to India regularly on work in paid C/J.

Have one last EK trip booked this summer with my wife and infant son on Y (the change in lounge access rules has really turned me off EK), and will try to use my ~150K odd EK miles to upgrade. If not - I'll buy something on High Street and am calling it curtains on EK. May still make the occasional J trip on EK if the fare is low, but there's almost no value in keeping Gold when flying on J and so it's certainly curtains on EK Gold, even if not on EK itself.