99% of Emirates customers will never even reach status, so discussion of retaining Gold is rather irrelevant to them!

I'm not sure how you reached that conclusion. There's plenty of Silvers and Blues on here. We'd need a separate poll in the form of (1) go one tier up next year (2) go one tier down next year (3) maintain the same tier next year

I did clearly state that I wasn't a mathematician. All I did was total the Golds and Silvers who said they were going to qualify or re-qualify. I dont regard Blue as "elites" within Skywards.

And I'm sure we can't even extrapolate a logical estimate, given that we have so few respondents and that we represent engaged members, so to speak.

Oh right - you have access to who voted on the poll and what their vote was. We could always hack into ek.com and make everyone who is booking a ticket answer a poll

Can't figure out, how to cast a vote... Anyways, won't make it to renew silver due to flex/saver issue.

Rare I look in here now but I can speak for 4 adults (2 gold, 2 silver) and 1 baby who fly another airline now so we wont have any status this year.

Hitting Gold in a month or so
I will most likely hit Gold again next year even though I might be changing ships to Etihad.

Most times, when polls are set, there is a time-frame allocated for the poll to run. We normally allow 14-days. In your case, the reason you couldn't vote was because the poll had "closed".

Apologies...and welcome to FT.

I had been EK Gold for nearly 10 years straight. The crazy premium fares have put EK out of reach. We now fly LX, KQ and SA. I am now a lowly EK Silver

This thread and poll generated more interest than I thought, so I have re-opened the voting...

Have been Gold for 8 years straight and EK was my default for US-India trips.

But the massive dilution of Skywards means that EK status is no longer a priority and I don't expect to re-qualify for next year.

I'll receive silver next month, just 2750 miles short of gold. As I'm based in europe, doing a MR for gold is out of question.

But you would need to fly to DXB to earn those tier miles anyway, assuming it's a cheapo saver fare.

The categories are not necessarily exclusive - I checked "already made silver", but probably will make gold this year as well.

I am new to EK, three return trips so far (all SE Asia to Europe). I may make one to Canada later this year. I am currently a United 1K member, but I really don't want to fly on that airline (may retain Premier, or silver, status there due to flying on partner airlines).

Minor EK annoyance - the travel agent didn't put in my #, so I gave the internet pre-printed card (still haven't received my blue physical card, despite second return trip completed in March) at the check-in gate. But they didn't put it in either And this was the flight that would have put me over the top for silver. On the plus side, when I discovered this at the website, and put in the ticket number, the missing credit (and my silver status) showed up within a few hours. Unfortunately, my connection on the way back was tight enough that I didn't get to try the DXB lounge.

Had thought about Qatar, but that airport Is there supposed to be a new one soon?