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Gold extended when I didn't want it to be. Can anyone advise?

Gold extended when I didn't want it to be. Can anyone advise?

Old Apr 4, 2018, 9:27 am
  #1  
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Join Date: Oct 2016
Programs: Skywards (Gold), Star Alliance (Gold), Turkish Airlines (Elite +)
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Gold extended when I didn't want it to be. Can anyone advise?

I plan my travel very carefully to retain both gold status with Emirates and platinum with Turkish.

My review date with Emirates was 31st March 2018 and I was 87 miles short of retaining gold, but I flew literally the next day and earned 4500 miles, enough miles to requalify as gold on 1st April.

Emirates have retrospectively decided to extend my gold and keep my review date as March 31st 2019 (card valid until end May 2019), but actually this has stolen a month of what I feel I am entitled to.
By requalifying in April I should have a new review date of 30th April with card valid until June 2019.
I have spoken to ground staff at the airport, called the Skywards team in Manchester and emailed 3 times, but they keep telling me that have done me a favour.
It's like arguing with a brick wall.
They are determined that they have done me a favour keeping my renewal date in March and extending my gold benefits (which seem to become less on an almost monthly basis)
Having literally planned my travel to make sure my miles landed on 1st April and not 31st March, and having spent a fortune on flex instead of saver fares I am not at all happy to have a month of benefits stolen from me.

Can anyone advise?
This is the second time they have done something like this.
Last time I managed to sort it out, but this time they seem determined to keep what is mine.

I have way better things to do with my time than try to sort out problems and fight my case, but I want what I have spent a lot of money earning without moving goalposts.
They had shown absolute inflexibility when I had called them earlier in the month to ask if there was any leeway on requalifying. Now I have spent my money accordingly they have changed their minds.

Looks like Turkish will be getting more custom.
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Old Apr 4, 2018, 10:03 am
  #2  
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Not much more you can do I'm afraid. Just keep trying and you may get somebody that understands the issue.

It's pretty well documented on here that EK will renew your status if you're a "few" miles short (nots sure what the "few" figure actually is though).
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Old Apr 4, 2018, 10:22 am
  #3  
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Thanks for replying.
You should have an option to choose though! Of course if I hadn't been in a position to requalify in April I would have wanted to have their offer, but I had already spent money on tickets that requalified me. The extra month at the end is worth more to me than my new miles being carried for my next renewal as I plan to fly with them less this year. The programme is deteriorating rapidly to the extent I'm considering Qatar as my other main airline now.
I will keep trying until they give me what I earned. The last email from them contained these words:
As you are aware any Tier review period is valid for 12 months. You need to earn 50,000 Tier Miles within these 12 months. You would enjoy the benefits for 12 +2 months. If a member drops his Tier within this 12 months, he will be downgraded. Later if he earns the required number of Tier Miles after the 14th Month, automatically the system will generate the new Tier review date. This is to be fair in calculating the number of Tier miles earned during 12 months for all our members.

Ironically this is what I am asking for!!!
I didn't earn 50K miles. I did later earn the required miles to generate a new tier review date.
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Old Apr 4, 2018, 10:31 am
  #4  
 
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Originally Posted by Alisonnoonan
Thanks for replying.
You should have an option to choose though! Of course if I hadn't been in a position to requalify in April I would have wanted to have their offer, but I had already spent money on tickets that requalified me. The extra month at the end is worth more to me than my new miles being carried for my next renewal as I plan to fly with them less this year. The programme is deteriorating rapidly to the extent I'm considering Qatar as my other main airline now.
I will keep trying until they give me what I earned. The last email from them contained these words:
As you are aware any Tier review period is valid for 12 months. You need to earn 50,000 Tier Miles within these 12 months. You would enjoy the benefits for 12 +2 months. If a member drops his Tier within this 12 months, he will be downgraded. Later if he earns the required number of Tier Miles after the 14th Month, automatically the system will generate the new Tier review date. This is to be fair in calculating the number of Tier miles earned during 12 months for all our members.

Ironically this is what I am asking for!!!
I didn't earn 50K miles. I did later earn the required miles to generate a new tier review date.
they clearly say the review date will only be changed if you renew after the 14th month.

Not it sure what rapid deterioration you're seeing, the last major change was introducing free unlimited WiFi for Gold and above for all classes of serv
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Old Apr 4, 2018, 11:06 am
  #5  
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Originally Posted by skywardhunter


they clearly say the review date will only be changed if you renew after the 14th month.

Not it sure what rapid deterioration you're seeing, the last major change was introducing free unlimited WiFi for Gold and above for all classes of serv


Changes:
Operational upgrades awarded according to revenue not status.
Prime seats now allocated according to revenue and often not released even for golds.
Neither of these are small things.

So what happens in the 2 months in-between? It means you're not allowed to requalify during that time? Maybe I had misunderstood the rules, but this seems somewhat unfair. I thought the ongoing rolling 13-months for earning a new status was permanent.

Actually their website mentions nothing of the 14-month thing.
It says that as soon as you drop a tier the 13-month rolling qualification will resume. I had used the website rules as the basis for my decisions:
https://www.emirates.com/english/hel...latinum-status

Last edited by Alisonnoonan; Apr 4, 2018 at 11:12 am
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Old Apr 4, 2018, 11:41 am
  #6  
 
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Originally Posted by Alisonnoonan
Changes:
Operational upgrades awarded according to revenue not status.
Prime seats now allocated according to revenue and often not released even for golds.
Neither of these are small things.

So what happens in the 2 months in-between? It means you're not allowed to requalify during that time? Maybe I had misunderstood the rules, but this seems somewhat unfair. I thought the ongoing rolling 13-months for earning a new status was permanent.

Actually their website mentions nothing of the 14-month thing.
It says that as soon as you drop a tier the 13-month rolling qualification will resume. I had used the website rules as the basis for my decisions:
https://www.emirates.com/english/hel...latinum-status

Op-up criteria still favors Golds over Silver to some extent, within the same fare type. If you buy a Flex ticket you've still got a decent shot at an upgrade.

No idea what you mean by prime seats allocated according to revenue, you can select the preferred seats for free in Y and there's no difference in other cabins. You weren't able to select the exit row seats before either, so at most you lost your shot at the twins, they used to all be taken already anyway.
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Old Apr 4, 2018, 12:01 pm
  #7  
 
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Originally Posted by skywardhunter



Op-up criteria still favors Golds over Silver to some extent, within the same fare type. If you buy a Flex ticket you've still got a decent shot at an upgrade.

No idea what you mean by prime seats allocated according to revenue, you can select the preferred seats for free in Y and there's no difference in other cabins. You weren't able to select the exit row seats before either, so at most you lost your shot at the twins, they used to all be taken already anyway.
I was talking recently to check in manager at EK gulf destination, that receives a few EK flights a day.He told me categorically that priority for op up goes to status members ie priority is NOT given to fare paid (in same class).Of course this may vary,but that's what I was told.
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Old Apr 4, 2018, 1:22 pm
  #8  
 
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Not sure I am getting what OP is complaining about. And what benefits are being stolen here???

Sorry, 87 (!) miles short of renewal, despite careful planning? And then complaining about renewal in March, rather than April. Really???

So what happened the first time EK did this and OP complained?
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Old Apr 4, 2018, 5:39 pm
  #9  
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XXTSGR
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Old Apr 4, 2018, 5:42 pm
  #10  
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Originally Posted by XXTSGR
Not sure I am getting what OP is complaining about. And what benefits are being stolen here???

Sorry, 87 (!) miles short of renewal, despite careful planning? And then complaining about renewal in March, rather than April. Really???

So what happened the first time EK did this and OP complained?
You clearly haven't understood the first post in the thread.

Last time they put it right and gave me back the additional month I was entitled to.
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Old Apr 4, 2018, 5:47 pm
  #11  
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Originally Posted by ElJudioErrante
I was talking recently to check in manager at EK gulf destination, that receives a few EK flights a day.He told me categorically that priority for op up goes to status members ie priority is NOT given to fare paid (in same class).Of course this may vary,but that's what I was told.
He told you wrong. Fare is considered first but within the fare type status is then considered. If a gold and a silver both have a flex the gold should get priority, but a non-status flier on Flex Plus will be selected before a gold with a flex fare.
Fare type didn't used to factor and top status fliers got a lot more upgrades then.
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Old Apr 4, 2018, 6:15 pm
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Originally Posted by Alisonnoonan
He told you wrong. Fare is considered first but within the fare type status is then considered. If a gold and a silver both have a flex the gold should get priority, but a non-status flier on Flex Plus will be selected before a gold with a flex fare.
Fare type didn't used to factor and top status fliers got a lot more upgrades then.
How do you know he told me wrong ?
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Old Apr 5, 2018, 12:44 am
  #13  
 
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Quote:Originally Posted by Alisonnoonan
So what happens in the 2 months in-between? It means you're not allowed to requalify during that time?
Yes, you can requalify - it's just badly worded.
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Old Apr 5, 2018, 12:48 am
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Sorry - quote function playing up again in above post and unable to edit.
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Old Apr 5, 2018, 1:24 am
  #15  
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Originally Posted by Alisonnoonan
He told you wrong. Fare is considered first but within the fare type status is then considered. If a gold and a silver both have a flex the gold should get priority, but a non-status flier on Flex Plus will be selected before a gold with a flex fare.
Fare type didn't used to factor and top status fliers got a lot more upgrades then.
Actually, you are wrong. Platinum trumps everybody these days. This changed about 6 months ago.
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