mrtdxb

I traveled on EK29 yesterday - DXB to LHR - with a colleague who is Gold. I guested him into F lounge as I am Platinum. When we got to boarding gate he was upgraded to F and I was not upgraded and I am Platinum. His last name begins with a B and mine with a T. Ho hum.

m3red

That would make me very angry. No one has the right to a "free" op up but you should be first in the queue. Worth a call/email to ek to highlight this?

mrtdxb

I have never in six years had a response to an email to EK except for the auto response that they have received my question so I don't think I shall be bothering to do that. A call would be futile too I suspect. Perhaps it is because I checked in online 23 hours and 45 mins prior to departure and he checked in at airport 2 hours prior.

ft101

Do you travel in F frequently? Does he?

It may be a lure to see if they can change him from a J flyer to an F flyer by showing him what he's missing.

A valid reason IMO if you've answered yes then no to the above questions.

jackiedada

I would write to EK about it asap - clearly an instance where they failed to recognize their most valuable FF. Maybe the guy managing the op-ups didn't expect any Plats, or wasn't aware that a new tier called Platinum has been introduced ABOVE gold not BELOW it....

jackiedada

Write a real stinker, and then every week, send them a reminder with the subject line as
Reminder # 1: My recent experience on EK029;

Then rafter a week:
Reminder # 2: My recent experience on EK029

and so on. That usually gets them to write back before you reach Reminder # 3, is what has been my experience.

jackiedada

On second thought, send in an email to Thierry Antinori, telling him that you are facing serious discrimination as a Plat and would like to get back to Gold...

mrtdxb

Yes and no! You could have hit the nail on the head.

mrtdxb

^ Thanks for the smile.

Zol

mrtdxb, I think this officially proves you are on the "black list"

mrtdxb

I had similar thoughts too but did not want to voice them lest I was labeled a whiner.

jackiedada

Seriously, you should write to Skywards. It's in the greater good for everyone. They need to have a 'system' for op-ups and clearly in this case someone made a decision that wasn't in the best interests of EK and its most frequent flyers. And that too at DXB and not an outstation. They need to be aware of that and 'fix' it.

Zol

Is there a point, you actually think they are not aware and that station staff do as they please? They might allow a bit of autonomy bit ultimately they know what happens, reports are filed after every flight.

jackiedada

Its not any station, its DXB in question. Yes, reports may be filed every day but does any one bother to look at them - piles of them floating around given the number of flights EK has. And no one will, until you point it out to them.

Its up to the op to decide what he would like to do - I would. I've earned my miles the hard way and so it would cause me a good amount of distress that the humongous amounts of time that I've spent at the back of the plane come to naught when a Gold gets op-upped before me.

mrtdxb

As Zol says above there is every chance I am a special case and have been black listed. I have only received one op up in the last six years (all as a Gold and as a Platinum these last few months) and that was in Paris from J to F last year some time.

The problem is I wrote a few times to (Sir) Maurice Flanagan with constructive criticism of and suggestions for the Skywards program way back in 2007 and 2008 and he took umbrage at some of my thoughts and personally fired a vitriolic response or two at me. For me this is a sign of "he who is most indignant is guilty" type response but having had a good op-up success rate until then I dropped to zero for about five years until I got the lone one in Paris last year.

An EK insider confirmed to me at our first Dubai Do that there is indeed a special list (not called a black list) that if I was on it would explain why I was so "unlucky" and promised to try to check it to see if I was on it but despite a couple of reminders he never got back to me. Hmmm. We are not talking about a no-fly list but a "this guy is a pain in the *ss so do not do anything for him if you can help it" type list.

Therefore given that I have never, ever had a response to any emails that I have sent through normal channels - probably for the same reason - I have little to no desire to waste more time and energy on this. I will do what I always do and that is buy tickets for the class of travel I want to fly in and on occasion use miles to upgrade - subject to there being any Z inventory available of course, but that is another story.