Xxxxx

Agree totally. We have been asking EK all year re program launch date and details and they keep telling us that an announcement is imminent. The QF tie up should see this all come to a head at least by the end of the year. Sorry we don't have more. I still think the bar will be around the 100-125K mark.

Once upon at time I was one of BA's top 1,500 flyers by points earned (I can't do a conversion to EK miles in my head), although I'm now an economy class flyer on EK - which makes sense when it's your own company's money you're spending.

At BA there was plain gold, followed by a couple of extra benefits such as upgrade vouchers, then 'Gold Guest List' which included a really good, personalised, immediate answer telephone line, and then a 'Concorde Room' card to access the premium lounges at LHR and JFK, regardless of class of travel. The latter I found to be the equivalent of the DXB First Class lounge.

Am I right in thinking that EK Golds only get access to the business lounge? There are some ways in which EK can add extra 'hidden' elements of the Gold tier and provide more incentives to keep earning miles, without having to create extra tiers. And surely, judging by a lot of UAE architecture I've seen, gold will always be the very top tier, none of this platinum nonsense. Maybe 'White Gold'!

EK does have it's invitation only tier for the uber high flyers, but the requirements are unpublished (unlike BA GGL or LH HON) and this 'tier' is out of reach for all except the top couple of hundred (F) flyers.

I do agree, like eightblack posted earlier on, that there needs to be an incentive for those who do the 50k in 1 month. Not the 10% discount on your next redemption kind of thing, but something a little bit more structured.

Well, just to be prepared I am targeting >125K tier-qualifying miles on my account by Dec. 31 ...

Somehow I get the feeling that EK will not announce the 4th tier until concourse 3 becomes operational and their newer (and larger) lounge facilities come online. Assume for a minute that the 4th tier will give F lounge access irrespective of class of travel. I doubt they want to crowd the existing F lounge with 4th tier folks - they'd ideally want to get the infrastructure set up first and then deliver on it. Otherwise, the levels of satisfaction will run fairly low in the 4th tier and people will begin to question why did they introduce a higher tier if they couldn't deliver superior benefits.

Again, this is just an opinion....

Or, 24k Gold, which is the specialty in the Dubai Souks.

If only EK applied that thought process to everything else they did! They could have easily waited for those new lounges to become available before shutting silvers out of the existing lounge, for example!

That's true!

^ Well you crack on with that mate, youv already shown your hand.

There are one or two sitting around the table to see what skywards play.

Alot of silvers arnt there and if the golds start to wonder off to another table to see how the cards are getting dealt there.

Some of us long ago left to another table. Hopefully whatever EK comes up with the additional benefits make it worth getting the higher status (unlike platinum one). In the meantime I just sit back with high/top status on various alliances and programmes. I don't need to fly EK, so please entice me.

Do you guys still think it's going to be introduced Jan 2013?
I somehow thought they are going to officially announce it Oct/Nov so that people probably book some more flights according to what they might need for the new tier.

I think it's going to have to be announced soon - given that the compelling event to do so is the pending QF partnership. Zol and I have given up asking the folks in DXB - but I agree with you, you'd think they would want to announce it prior to the end of the year...

I'm with you on this, Kiwi Flyer.

EK, given their arrogance and history aren't going to do anything worthwhile.

Not to mention shutting out of travelling companions from ALL lounges, just because the T3 Business lounge is a zoo.

Talk about trying to crack a nut with a sledgehammer. But this arrogant, gung-ho approach will also be their downfall. Not today, not tomorrow, but sometime...