Hi All,

Have been a lurker for quite some time. Especially the Trip reports section.

Have been in UAE since 06, flying EK exclusively - pay for my own travel (business and pleasure). Been gold for 3+ years.

Don't mean to start a controversial thread... as my first, but this last year i have been wondering if it was worth spending my travel allowance on a single airline and often paying a premium for fares ex-DXB, especially as (thankfully) i now do more of my travel in a premium class... when i travel Y, i have priority pass (via Amex) for lounge access in case i need it.

I didn't know about the talk re the fourth tier, though understood its necessity - remembering back to when T3 openned and they didn't seperate silver lounge (ouch!).

I just requalified for gold after a very dissappointing trip DXB-HKT-DXB in F. My rollover is end of this month (and i have 250,000 miles accumulated over the years which i will use sparingly on upgrades), I have a trip coming up to switzerland and am wondering if it would be worth it to try another airline - i will be travelling J - if i do emirates for about 9xxxAED (ex KHI to FRA) i start the year off with 13xxx miles; however for half that price could travel gulf, QR is cheaper as well...

So, my long winded question is, if you already travel the majority of the time in a premium class, what does status do for you? Is it worth it to maintain (or plan to maintain) gold? there is no way i will be hitting plat.

Thanks, A

PS. I may be moving, part of the year to Singapore by end of this year...

I managed to use the benefit of taking a guest into a lounge twice; other than that I haven't seen any benefit of gold over just having a ticket in 1st ( or even business on the flights I have done there )

I suppose its the ability to upgrade and buy tickets. If you just flew F or J thats all it can be I suppose. If I could afford to buy F all the time I would still have a FFP as I could buy say my family tickets and its nice to "get something back" then I suppose if you can pay for F you can pay for your family too!

I rarely fly Y these days but having status definitely benefits Y flyers with Gold more than J with gold in my view for tangible benefits.

As someone who flys J, Gold gives very little really. The extra miles bonus and a better chance of an op-up is about it for me.

I can def see the benefits when flying economy, but when flying J/F, not so much.

For someone who does long haul in Y for a majority (> 60%) of his travel, there are benefits of an FFP that make this sort of travel bearable. The ones I really find useful:

1. Priority check-in (no waiting in the long Y queue), and baggage delivery (out of the airport in a jiffy).

2. Lounge access (relax before the flight and catch up on some work in the quiet of the lounge)

3. Op-ups especially when they happen on 13-14 hour flights; never really cared about the ones on the 2:40 hr BOM-DXB connections Y/J/F is all the same to me on those.

4. I mainly use my FFP miles to upgrade us to J/F when we go for a vacation. My wife hardly travels overseas so it is a real experience for her. And traveling in a premium cabin, with the EK bling, great on board product and service and with complementary chauffeur drive makes it all that more special.

I normally travel J, a lot to HKG or BKK, never been op-uped to F... that would be a plus!