Havoc10G

Well I suppose to misquote Oscar Wilde * the only thing worse than having io status is not having it!*

Beyond the various benefits talked about what else is left to have that they don't provide in an io card!?

yyzlhr

Never seen it proactively done for silver or gold.

But agree not sure on the tangilbe - I actually wouldn't want someone escorting me thru airport with idle chit chat abut "did you have a good flight or ar eyou hon business or holiday"

chinatraderjmr

NONE REALLY!!!! All my EK trips are full F and I get everything I need. (I even get M&G in London thru the station manager there. The only benefits I can see (and I'm guessing) is a personal contact in case of IROPS or some emergency, perhaps no capacity controls on awards...???? (maybe they get to take a 20 min shower on the 380 instead of the customary 15 . I don't know. EK has always treated me very well both on the ground and in the air since I started flying them regularly in 1997. I sure would like that black luggage tag though

When you fly TG F into BKK they have a GREAT service. They meet each F passenger at the jet way and take them to immigration on a golf cart, then walk them thru to the front of immigration and hand them off to another employee that stays with you till you get your luggage and takes you all the way to your car/driver. This would be a good service for I/O's landing in difficult airports like BKK, MNL, BOM, ETC. Just a thought

father_ted

I don't understand why BKK gets a bad rep... EK give out the fast track cards, there is rarely a queue at arrival immigration (indeed I had to wake up the immigration guy the other week) and departure immigration is fairly painless. EK chauffeur service is professional from just outside Customs... what more do you want?

whimike

Agreed. BKK is a big airport, but if you are flying premium cabin it is a piece of cake.

chinatraderjmr

I didn't say BKK was in league with Dhaka or anything but it CAN be difficult.
EKs flights do not arrive during the real peak time at BKK. I agree, the fast track card is a big key but if you arrive during the VERY busy times (when all the flights from Europe come in) then the meet and great service is a big help. Also depending on your gate, it can be quite a hike to immigration so the golf carts are wonderful. Don't get me wrong, BKK is fine if you have a fast trak card. Someone in This thread was asking WHAT, if anything can they do for I/O that they cont already do. That was just an example

chinatraderjmr

Ok, I never even knew what I/O was until I read this thread. In fact, the last post on it above was from me a month ago. I just came into JFK last week from DXB. When I was in Dubai I had lunch with a friend who's a Sr VP with DNATA Aand I asked him about it. He didn't have a clue but said he would check and let me know

My assistant just sent me an email from Dubai and said I got a package from Emirates. In it was my new I/O card and luggage tags and a few nice gifts. The letter with it mentions my long time revenue with EK but nothing about the miles I've flown.

Very strange. I analyzed my travel. I moved my company to Dubai 13 years ago and since then (before service started to JFK) I would fly r/t DXB-LHR aprx 24 times a year in F. Since the JFK flight started I take that R/T aprx 15-18 times a year, also in F (and of course hundreds of flights over the past 13 years to Asia, Africa, India etc
Then of course there are my employees who travel EK C all over the world (my company buys about 10 - 20 tickets a month to Pakistan, India and Bangladesh in J. Does EK consider cargo revenue? If so then I might understand better as we do a lot of cargo business with them)

So did I get it because of my personal travel or my companies? Would I even have gotten it at all if I didn't ask my friend to look into it?

Anyway. I'm on my way to Europe and Asia but return to Dubai in a few weeks. I'll post the membership guidelines, perks, etc here for everyone to read. I wish I was home now so I could see the whole package.

whimike

Congratulations!

I am quite surprised you haven't received an I/O invitation a long time ago.

Looking at the amount of flying you have done and for how long, I/O is some serious unobtanium for most of us.

What I am more surprised about is that they mailed you the I/O package, I had heard that I/O customers were informed of their status in person.

chinatraderjmr

Actually, someone from EK sales brought it to my office in Dubai. However, I am in NY so my assistant took it and told this person when I'll be back. I would think they would call and make an appointment instead if just "popping by".

I'll find out what it's all about when inspect the package in 2 weeks and post exactly what the benefits are + a proud screen shot of my shiny new card

I mis typed. My company DOES NOT buy 10-20 tickets a WEEK to India, Pakistan & Bangladesh. it's 10-20 tickets A MONTH......sorry

GigoloArt

I have posted it many times: iO is not only about revenue recognition but also about decision making capabilities. This is about CEOs who have decision power on hundred thousands or millions of travel budget AEDs but don't have one single revenue mile with EK since they don't fly commercial (i.e. they would be Blue). There are many other data points, e.g. just look into strategy consulting, none of the Dubai based managing partners are flying revenue-F as per travel policy (indeed, a lot of the big consulting firms' partners are now flying Y for flights below 4h, McK for example). They either fly J or Y. However, each consulting firm have a couple of iOs, and of course, these are the managing partners.

One exception to this rule, one project leader (so relatively junior in comparison to a partner with decision power) in a firm who has never traveled in revenue-F in his life is an iO because of his contacts.

And yes, if I think about, none of the iOs I know personally flies revenue-F.

Zol

Congratulations chinatraderjmr and thanks for sharing. Looking forward to more details

B747-437B

Maybe they are processing i/O invitations in alphabetical order?

Except for those based in Dubai though...

chinatraderjmr

My real name is not CHINATRADER . But it does start with a letter closer to Z then A

whimike

Alphabetical FT handle most likely.

eightblack

I think the great things about programs such as i/O is the sheer amount of speculation and conjecture that the actual program generates (some might even argue that EK/Skywards do this on purpose).

For example, the EK people I have spoken to have mentioned that criteria is not based on influence (ie your ability to influence corporate spend) but rather on individual spend. There will always be exceptions.

This issue in itself has caused angst within the EK management in DXB.

I am personally of the opinion that the main criteria is RPKM (Revenue per km). It's the fairest way. I doubt if it is based on tier miles, and using RPKM doesn't mean that it is slanted just towards F travel (although I wouldn't think that out of the supposed 400 i/O members, that there would be anyone who would have achieved via Y travel).