Time to end relationship with EK?
 

Hi there

I have been with Skywards for over a year now and have been upgraded to Silver Tier after my first Singapore-London long-haul flight plus some joining bonus points. I'm a student but was working and travelling to Europe once for work and the rest for leisure.

I've enjoyed using the business class lounge at Gate 122 in Dubai and have been upgraded free to Business Class once. My miles redemption has been quite healthy, SIN-KIK/NRT-SIN, SIN-HKG-SIN. My main journeys were mainly Singapore-London as I am now living here. But I have made trips to Paris instead of London and HK instead of Singapore.

The main reason why I stuck with them was that they were generous in offering points on discounted economy (while SQ didn't) and that they were always the cheapest on these routes anyway.

It seems that this isn't the case nowadays. I just booked a Qantas flight as the EK ones were similarly priced with BA and others. I am also being kicked out of Silver with 1,000 tier miles short! I have 25k left, which would be good enough for another free flight to HKG or somewhere near, from Singapore.

I am also a member of Singapore Airlines Krisflyer (although I never fly with them, maybe about 3 times when I was younger) and keep this to collect random miles I make while on Star Alliance partners like Lufthansa etc. But the main reason for maintaining a Krisflyer account is so I can transfer the miles from my Citi PremierMiles card to KF and redeem SQ flights, starting at 70k for a return flight to London. I have yet to make any redemptions, as I am waiting for the very popular 50% sale on miles redemptions.

Back to my Qantas flight, after doing some small research, I decided to redeem my 12k miles for the Singapore-Frankfurt flight on QF with AAdvantage. I hope this was a wise move...

With me now moving to London and with Emirates' fares going up... should I just consider keeping the account dormant and concentrate on oneworld and Star Alliance? BTW, the Citi PremierMiles also enables me to transfer points to the Asia Miles programme (at a low 1:0.4) or even THAI's FFP (1:1). This Singapore-based card is great cos it offers 1 mile for every S$1 spent.

Any comments, advice etc... would be great!

Your choices depend on your hot buttons. Although I am OK to pay a small premium to fly EK to focus my points in as few programs as possible I am not willing to spend my or my companies money like water. Today I booked a DXB-LHR-DXB in Club World on BA for Aed12,865 when Emirates wanted Aed28,000 for Biz class. I used to shop EK against EY where there were good savings sometimes but EY seem to have joined the EK bandwagon and they priced almost identically to EK for this trip. Status means virtually nothing on EK or EY if travelling in Biz or First so it matters not to me whether I have any status flying Biz on other carriers because I will effectively get the same perks as I would flying Biz or First on EK with status. If one flies Economy in the main then a little status can go a long way and the smaller cost differences (in cash not percentage terms) can make it more worthwhile to stay loyal to a carrier so that the status can help you out in small but important ways.. The few extra points you earn from having status is also pretty meaningless to me because I literally have several million points on a variety of carriers that I have yet to use and so I do not miss them - again this may be something that is important to you more than me. Good luck with your choices.

I would definitely concentrate one one alliance... BAEC is now a decent program (if you can make it to Silver), BD Diamond Club is here to stay for at least a year or so (and if you make it to Gold, the will give you a Senator status for 2 years in the case BD finally integrates with M&M), Asiana has ridiculously low requirements for Gold level, even Sky Team has a few decent programs - like the Czech Airlines scheme. Shop around and choose scheme that suits you best.

If I lived in LHR, I'd probably choose BMI (as I'm a long-time *A member via UA). There's so much choice and as soon as you're Star Gold, a world of lounges opens up to you.

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+1 I would choose BMI in Lodnodn too, but if you are doing enough on LH Austrian Swiss United Brussels then think M&M

BA is going through a bad patch I would avoid for now.

LOL

You're saying you pick EK ex-DXB based on price? They're usually more expensive than the competition to pretty much anywhere out of Dubai.

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EK lounge at HKG is awful, whilst CX J lounge is one of the best at HKG :p

I think even the EK business class lounge at Gate 122 isn't fantastic! But is sure is better than outside and having to pay for food and drinks!

I have been doing some research and it seems that with many destinations in the UK, EK is very competitively priced when flying out from London (or the UK for that matter) than any other airline. It seems the UK is one of their prime target markets for long-haul destinations. I think I will keep my Skywards card and use it when I see a good price from them. Their prices are high for flights out of Singapore, but it seems ALL flights out of Singapore nowadays are becoming very expensive!

Because my Citi PremierMiles credit card transfers miles (WRT *A) to either Singapore Airlines or Thai Airways, which one should I go for? From time to time, SQ offers a 50% offer on redemption and always gives 15% discount when redeeming via their website. I'm not so sure about THAI's Royal Orchid Plus programme. The downside for SQ is that you need to book about 4 months in advance to redeem anything really...

In order to keep the miles on Qantas (oneworld), I still haven't decided on whether to go for AAdvantage, BA Executive Club or FrequentFlyer. Compared to QF which gives 100% i.e. 12,000+, BA offers 25% of the miles for the discount economy ticket I am holding. But the QF programme's redemption is 'expensive' (about 15% higher than usual e.g. 87,000 instead of 70,000 for a SIN-LON return, correct me if I am wrong) and also offers very little miles (25%) for discounted flights on BA. AA is in the middle, giving 50% for my cheap tickets on either QF or BA.

As I am a very price sensitive consumer, it is likely that I may take BA in future (if Ryanair becomes not viable after surcharges upon surcharges). But this will only be for short-haul flights mostly... I predict. So it will pay for me to join a oneworld carrier's FFP. I think BA's programme is out, and I don't shop at Tesco that often either plus airline-branded credit card programmes are more lucrative for AAdvantage, even in the UK!

So do I sacrifice 6,000 miles by joining AAdvantage and earn 50% miles on future discount economy tickets on BA... OR

Keep 6,000 miles by sticking to QF and earn 25% miles on future discount economy tickets on BA... and also face 15% higher redemption rates.

I'm aiming for a short term gain... as in to collect enough points for redemption and that's it... unless otherwise. What do you think? AA or QF and as per above, SQ or TG?

I do live in Accra and in the last 2 years alone I have flown Emirates via Dubai between Accra and London, Johannesburg, Nairobi, Toronto and Amsterdam (in addition to more "natural" connecting markets like India and China). There are hundreds if not thousands of Skywards Gold members living in Accra alone.

hi, can you elaborate on this a bit? :)

also, how does one increase their chances of getting opups? I've only had it once and that was only because I made the (horrible) mistake of doing a 10hr transit period to save £50! as of now, all my flights are for personal travel, so #1 (price) comes first and foremost!

Mechanical failure --deletion--see below

[QUOTE=B747-437B;16297043]I do live in Accra and in the last 2 years alone I have flown Emirates via Dubai between Accra and London, Johannesburg, Nairobi, Toronto and Amsterdam (in addition to more "natural" connecting markets like India and China). There are hundreds if not thousands of Skywards Gold members living in Accra alone.[/QUOTEais th
SOunds a bit sad to me, ACC-DXB-LON.

Isnt there a much shorter connection, Mr whine and cheez? (if you understand French see the EK ""en francais"" for related posts .. if you dont, PM me and I will translate if you wish)