Lifetime Status?
 

I'm curious to see how many people would value lifetime status from EK? For example with 2 of my other airline loyalty programs (QF and UA), both have Lifetime Recognition (in QF's case, its based on Status Credits - ie similar to tier miles) and in UA's case, it's based on BIS (butt-in-seat miles on UA metal).

If you earn 14,000 status credits with QF, you earn Lifetime Gold (which for me is excellent, because it provides lounge access globally, priority check-in, increased baggage allowance etc etc). With UA, if you fly 1M BIS miles, while the benefits have been somewhat diluted, there are still things I like (for example, your spouse sharing the same status as you) and *A Gold for life

I know many people on this board have been flying EK for many years, and have racked up plenty of tier miles. Should EK recognise you in some way (or provide some sort of benefit, either one-time or recurring) for achieving 1M tier miles? Or should there be some other metric/measurement?

if EK is still following SQ's ideology to a T.

Then I doubt it would happen, as SQ scrapped their lifetime tier more than 10 years ago.

As a customer I would definitely want the recognition. Commercially, I don't think it makes that much sense but it all depends on the population profile. Take you as an example, you are lifetime gold with QF but when was the last time you were onboard. I would relax and not worry about renewing my status YoY (not that 50K is much) and might focus my attention on other airlines.

Having said that, another way of looking at it is I would strive to retain status for the next x number of years to guarantee myself lifetime and this is guaranteed revenue for the airline.

Although I have QF lifetime gold status , I do not think it makes sense to have a lifetime tier ; even though I now only use QF for domestic flights I maintain all the benefits of gold status; fine for me, but cuckoo for the airline

We have quite enough elite members already. :td:

I have actually been flying QF a bit lately - given that I am in Australia monthly, so my lifetime status is useful because I don't fly enough with QF to maintain any type of status typically.

With both QF and UA, when you earn lifetime status, you only receive "mid-tier" recognition (ie Gold for QF and Premier Gold for UA) so its not as if they are creating another level.

It's not to say that if you earned 1M tier miles with EK, I would be happy with Lifetime Silver though....:)

To me, the main benefit is lounge access and this can be obtained by purchase of an Admiral's Club or Qantas Club membership or a business class ticket/upgrade

But why purchase Club Membership if they provide it as a benefit? I achieved Lifetime status with QF back in 2002 (I think) so I haven't paid anything for 10+ years.

Ah no, I am not suggesting that you do so, just pointing out that for those that do not have lifetime status, that the key benefit can be purchased for QF ( and Virgin ) on an annual or ( for Virgin ) one-off basis

Conversely, Emirates does not (iirc) offer a paid lounge membership scheme

LT Gold does start providing better benefits should there be occasional travel with other OW carriers in *shudder* economy

Oh no, its Gold or nothing.

Greedy little bugger (゜レ゜)

Addressing the germane part of your question which was would I personally value it - speaking personally, yes I would. I cannot say why and perhaps need not because it would probably be for different reasons that others may have (or not in some cases) and is largely intangible in my case. I still like the fact that I am lifetime Gold with AA and whenever I catch sight of my old Million Miler Executive Platinum card or paggage tags I slightly rue the fact that I am unlikely to ever reach the next milestone with them as I have no plans to return to the USA. Don't ask me why as I do not really know. I just do.

I would definitely value it and I believe it also makes a lot of sense from the airline's point of view. Heres why: I typically get enough tier points to re-up my Gold status about 2 months into the membership year. I have no further motivation to stick to the carrier (apart from the miles - which you can get anywhere). I just had a very lovely lady from Etihad in my office (are we even allowed to say that name on this forum?!) who handed me my status-matched Etihad Gold card and did quite a convincing sales pitch for her airline. If Etihad offered lifetime loyalty, I would instantly have switched all the rest of my travel to them as I think its a worthwhile perk to aim for. All this business travel in Business class and First is not going to last forever and I can just imagine me, after I am retired, shuffling along in the back of a long line, reminiscing about the good old days when I meant something to the airline!

Starwood recently introduced lifetime status in their SPG program after a lot of consumer research. It demonstrably influences buyer behavior and fosters long term brand loyalty and goodwill.

Ms. Z perchance?

Before one achieves status, there is value for the airline. After achieving status, there is value for the customer. So, the question is where to set this limit, so that people keep flying to try and achieve this status, but don't earn it so fast as to be a burden on the airline.

I'm sure if they offered lifetime Gold at 5 million miles, that probably wouldn't be considered very good value.

I think a more sophisticated approach would be to have a decay rate for miles that are earned, instead of them resetting to 0 after 12 months. One wouldn't have status benefits indefinitely then, but at least past loyalty would receive some recognition.