Hi all

My first post but i've used this forum a lot over the years.

Ok, so unfortunately my company has transferred to me to work on a project in Ghana from Dubai which means using EK, and thus easily maintaining Skywards status and collecting miles, has become not so straight forward.

I am a Silver member on Skywards, only 25k tier points away from gold and i've already maintained my silver status for the year but i have some flights coming up and can't decide between taking an EK flight to LHR via DXB from Accra (Ghana) part leg J class (through mileage upgrade) and racking up those points and miles or taking a BA direct ACC-LHR on a 777 J return and losing those EK miles but saving a pretty penny and a much easier journey. I am an Exec member on paper but never used it as i've always flown EK for the last 4 years since living there.

I'm looking for some advice on:

* How does BA CW (777) compare to J on EK (A340-500 AND A380)
* Weigh up a twice as long journey on EK, more expensive but piling on a significant amount of points and miles?

Any advice greatly appreciated!

Dean

seeing as CommunityBuzz is about Flyertalkers meetings & gatherings, I'll move this thread to EK forum.

Willie
co-moderator CommunityBuzz

I'd usually say fly Emirates but for this route nothing beats direct. You're compromising time and money to get tier miles, not worth it. Unless you find an excuse to go to DXB?!

Soooo not worth it to take EK. It is simply too far out of your way, and the BA product is pretty good. Time to adjust to your new circumstances I think!

Wait until our resident Africa expert shows up - B747-437B. He's flying to and from Accra weekly and has simply wonderful things to say about EK's hard product onboard the A340's!!

Once you get him wound up, there will be no stopping him

Depending on your schedule, flying via Dubai to Europe may actually be beneficial. I have done it multiple times myself simply due to the better flight timings. Leaving Ghana at 645pm allows me a full day in the office (from which I can walk to the airport in less than 10 minutes), a decent night of sleep on the plane, a short transit in Dubai and then a morning flight to Europe during which I can either prepare for work or catch up on more sleep before an arrival just before lunchtime. And then a Chauffeur Drive to destination so I can truly hit the ground running.

As opposed to British Airways where you depart close to midnight and arrive at the crack of dawn into the crazy T5 morning peak. The flight is too short to sleep properly and you get into Europe too early to hit the ground running, which I actually find to be more tiring because I have to unwind and then gear up again. I've flown Accra-London around 250 times on various airlines and Accra-Dubai around 50 times now, so I've got a fairly decent sample size to work with for each.

There are plenty of people who fly this route from Accra on a regular basis. London is probably one of the top 5 connecting points from the Accra flight, behind Beijing, Guangzhou, Mumbai and Toronto. Skywards Gold members in Accra are a dime a dozen though. It is not uncommon to see 150-200 Skywards Gold in Economy on the flight so don't expect any sort of special treatment or recognition.

I'm no expert unlike B747 on the route, but just looking at the aircraft and thinking about the hard product, I'd say to go with the time savings and use that to be your recovery time on the ground. Personally, I'd rather be on the ground and at the hotel rather than the flying bed.

Thanks everyone for your feedback. It's a fairly new route for me having only done it half a dozen times and all occasions were from DXB on EK. As I'm only going to be in Accra till Oct-Nov at the latest (I'll be moving back to DXB once my contract here is up) i loathe to start collecting points and miles on another airline even if the J product on BA is good and direct.

I think I'm crazy but i'll likely stick to my ACC-DXB-LHR route and pick up those juicy points and miles and combine it with a stop in DXB for shopping and catching up with friends.

Thanks also to B747-437B for your input! I heard from a source at EK that they arent going to roll out the 777 till Jan-Feb '13 so we have the A345 to contend with for a while yet!

Dino

Don't expect particularly juicy offers from Accra.

I just paid almost $3000 RT for ACC-PEK in Economy Class and its a SAVER fare. 6500 Tier Miles for $3000. Ugh.

Wow. So people fly ACC-DXB-YYZ?

Wow; that sounds like a bit much. Maybe it was just a high-load day?

I tried searching the next week, and couldn't get it to price higher than 1236 USD.

Holy Cow. I hope you broke into First Class and took a couple Doms with you.