roundrulers

I was checking my account balance today and I noticed that EVA Air changed my membership status to "Diamond Card" member. I'm not really sure what's going on because I have never flow the required 120,000 miles. In fact, I probably only fly 50,000 miles per year. (less than the required miles for Diamond)

You guys are probably going to say that I got it because of 8-plus years as a Gold member. I was Gold from 2001 to 2005 and 2007 to 2011(current year). There was a 2-year period when I was just a plain silver member. EVA Air's rules clearly states "8 consecutive years" as Gold in order to be upgraded to Diamond. Unless they changed the rules again to any 8 years as Gold?

My first thought was to call EVA Air, but their local office is closed right now. If the Diamond status was given to me in error, should I just keep quiet and not alert them to this error?

What benefit am I going to get as a Diamond? Every flight that I took on EVA Air had been in long-haul business class from LA or NY to Asia. (company paid for the business class tickets) As far as I can see, there's no real benefit for me, or am I wrong?

Too bad EVA Air isn't in Star Alliance yet... what *A status will a EVA Air Diamond member have?

jimbo99

I had heard they were soft on when the 8-year period starts. Though the scheme came in 2003 (so the first upgrades started 2011), they were upgrading people before then - eg people who had been gold since 2002 could get upgraded in 2010. But they were strict about the broken periods. (I was in the category too - 10 or 12 years as gold, but 1 year as silver 2002/2003.)

I wouldn't call them. Sounds like an IT issue or perhaps they've widened the net.

Yep - no real benefit for a PL flyer of Diamond over Gold. All I can think of is:

1) guaranteed availability if you book 72 hours ahead (and more likely to get a seat within that period)
2) use of the Garden at TPE (but not really EVA's "top lounge" anymore)
3) Use of "diamond check-in lounge" at TPE and Songshan.
4) take a companion into a non-EVA lounge.

Of course you can transfer upgrade vouchers/miles to friends.

I think the lower the class of travel, the better the benefits of having status with EVA.

ak333

Actually this what I've discovered. Unfortunately for BR since I have become a Diamond member I haven't purchased a PL ticket. I've used my upgrade certificates, used my miles for a PL award, and have been op-upped to get into PL, but money spent - no. Of course it seems that they are still getting me for an Elite fare every month so it's not as if I'm not a good source of revenue for them.

roundrulers

I also got the upgrades after being bumped to diamond.

Am I allowed to let my immediate family members use these upgrades? I really don't want to call EVA Air for obvious reasons.

Thanks!

ak333

Do you mean the electronic upgrade certificates? If so, they are transferable provided that the transferee is one of your mileage nominees.

Cathay Boy

No worries, as a person who has heard my relatives shared those wonderful BR miles redemption stories, those miles will virtually be meaningless and won't actually redeem any flights that you wanted, or cost you more than you expected.

But do enjoy the DM privileges.

exwannabe

I have had no problems at all redeeming all my BR miles. Both on straight award flights and upgrades from DL->PL.

A total of about 450k miles, and all on the exact flights I was looking at and at the stated rate.

[On upgrades I have been wait-listed twice, but both came through]

EDIT: BR allows transferring miles. PLEASE let your relatives transfer those worthless miles to me. I will even pay,

ak333

I haven't had any issues either using my miles. CX has their issues as well with redemptions as you well know.

jimbo99

I used never to have a problem - even when Silver. Generally if seats were still for sale then they'd be available for reward tickets.

It seemed to change around 5 years ago for me. Non-availability was the order of the day. Eg on London, perhaps in 10 days there would be 1 or 2 flights available. The rest you'd be waitlisted. On TPE-HKG, often the only flights available would be at the end of the day. TPE-SGN is also very patchy. These are the only routes I know well.

This waitlisting happens whilst in some cases they are still selling the most discounted tickets.

But that's not to say you won't get the seats you want. It seems EVA just resent giving away something "free" if someone might pay for them. Often waitlisted seats will indeed clear, perhaps a few days before the flight. That's a pain if you are trying to plan something.

I can well believe ak333 doesn't have a problem - I think Diamonds are sufficiently few that they will get better treatment. Perhaps other routes are better than mine.

Everything I've read suggests to me that EVA is not particular bad, it's just they used to be so much better. I wanted to use some Air France miles to fly CDG-SGN in business class. Months at a time were blocked out. It was 2 or 3 years before I could get flights that made sense to me. AND I had to pay a fee when I had to change the inbound portion - something EVA doesn't do. I still have a load of *alliance miles that I've had several goes at using but to no avail.

Cathay Boy

That's what my relatives told me too, EVA used to be so first class organization, but now they haven fallen into the new Economy of "Don't be the best, just be better than your competitor", and unfortunately, the competitor for EVA is CI, and it really doesn't take much to be better than CI....

Also, in tough economy times, it is true airlines are starting to realize this "frequent flier miles" thing can cost them much money (accounting wise.) Cause to them, reward tickets are a lost in revenue.

mizuou

I totally agree with CB. I used to have 400K+ plus BR miles, and were happily redeeming them for TPE-NRT, TPE-KIX, TPE-FUK, TPE-LAX, TPE-EWR, etc. popular routes. But it all started to change a couple years ago when BR only put 1 PL seat available for award redemption for these popular routes, even as far out as 1 year in advance. I use my miles for family trips so this create a big headache for me because the flight schedule cannot be confirmed until 1-2 weeks prior (if lucky), or 1-2 days (if not so lucky), or even mid-trip. And I have been a GR or SL for BR then. So I sat on a pile of very-difficult-to-use miles for quite a while until it almost got expired. I finally scored some tickets to Japan this June (right before the expiring date), and it is because of the earthquake.

So I switched to CX this January. Been racking up 250K+ miles so far and have been happily redeeming them for intra-Asia trips. And the best part is that I can do it online, instant availability. And I was a GR/SL when all these redemptions happened.

I guess if you are DM, then your miles with BR is worth as much as it is if you use them. But if not, then, good luck!

jimbo99

By way of update, Wednesday (17th) at around 5pm I booked a V Elite return LHR-TPE, departing Monday (22nd) . Shortly afterwards I used the "Award Upgrade" option from the website and was waitlisted for a miles upgrade (just in the peak unfortunately) to PL.

8:30am the following morning EVA London phoned to confirm the upgrade.

I don't think this proves much (I'm Diamond now). But I can't fault them (except I was washing my hair when they called).

coolfish1103

Your miles are worth nothing unless you are a Diamond member because no one plans their trip a week or 1-3 days ahead just waiting for BR to confirm their un-sellable tickets. That's not how FFP works. While I am not fond of how most American carriers give out miles to keep their customers in tact, BR might as well just keep a Diamond Tier and get rid of all the other levels

ak333

See - it works!

Now that I've said that, for the first time I'm having an issue getting an upgrade cleared. The flight is wide open in PL too. The agent was surprised that it didn't clear when their office in TPE opened and sent a message to TPE for me.

Dave Z

I'll be turning that flight on Monday

Ex-LHR has been pretty empty this week.