Platinum status
 

Has anyone received the Platinum card package yet? Just curious.

Not being officially launched until 1st April.

Read a quote in BT magazine that said Emirates expect only 5% of the it's gold members to reach this tier.

The approximate number of Platinum members are 2500 and would be indicated as MVC on the passenger listing.

I got a call yesterday from Skywards customer service in Dubai to confirm my contact details and walk me through Platinum benefits.

This differs from the information given at the launch when Brian LaBelle said there were currently 110,000 Gold members and 5% of these (5,500 members) will automatically be Platinum.

Quite a significant difference.

Might be interesting to run a poll to know how many FT EK Golds, actually qualified (shall qualify) for Platinum...

Why should anyone bother qualifying for Plat unless they have to, given how crappy the benefits are? I'd rather rack up Gold status on the alliances, or just fly less EK but in better cabins.

At least once the program is launched we'll have an idea of the unpublished benefits

Because they can...

Op-up priority could be one of the most significant ones.

May I ask how you know these details please? I am not challenging them I am just interested.

Yea - I mean of course if you happen to get Plat by virtue of flying EK a lot for other reasons (connectivity, service, schedules, price) that's ok, but wouldn't make an effort to get Plat, whereas I did previously go out of my way to get Gold.

Op ups with EK (in all of my experience) are just strange. I seem to always end up on flights that are not quite full, even flights that have been sold out 2-3 days before that then had seats available day of departure. Either I have bad luck, of eightblack has gone and asked EK to put me on some kind of blacklist!

My guess is Because many of us that are/will be Platinum are already always flying paid F/J and are not in it for the "benefits" but for just the award tickets.

I have always been amazed how easy it is to attain Gold on EK (I've done it on 3 one ways) and there is NOTHING Gold or Platinum will give me that I don't get with my paid tkt anyway. I assume the F lounge access is nice for those that fly mostly on J fares but other then that EK has quite a lot of premium passengers and the ONLY reason they even bother with Skywards is a few free trips a year are nice to use ourselves or give to family / friends

I also got that call from a lady who was completely excited (and somewhat baffled that I wasn't as excited as she was).

Let's see whether we'll have op-up priority, more competent call centre agents, some helpful attitudes in "borderline" situations (e.g. requesting limo service some time after the deadline), and maybe something I would really really cherish: some more comfortable way of making a connection from A1 to C44 like I had to do the other day.

Platinum status
 

Well I assume the privileges will be somewhere between gold and I/o in which case it will be a nice enhancement to gold but nothing earth shattering. I do believe that platinum will be the new gold in which case more of a reversion to how gold members ( apologies to Austin powers!) used to be treated when there wasn't so many of them.

That may be the overall trend but I would assume that with the general cost-cutting and cutbacks on premium class travel, there should be quite a few travelers who make platinum on a predominantly Y travel pattern. Would be interesting to hear what their experience is....