As many of you know most business passengers on LY flights are from the Israeli high-tech industry, who prefer LY due to the frequent flyer benefits - upgrades and free flights.

In order to cope with the global economy crisis LY published last week a new pricing system (http://www.elal.co.il/ELAL/Hebrew/Ab...ce18012009.htm - press release in Hebrew)
, which actually cancels the need for a minimum stay in the US/far east for low fair booking classes - such as K and Q class, those are up to 30% cheaper than the next class which allowed no minimum stay (S class), however tickets in those (K,Q) booking classes are not upgradeable.

The implication for most high-tech travellers, which have their ticket purchased by their company with the lowest fair available is that from now on, there probably be almost no upgrades on flights to the US/far east and point accumalation will be much slower (K class provides half the points).

I think LY should seriously re-consider changing point accumulation and upgrade rules to be aligned with the new pricing system or otherwise high tech travellers, which are the bread and butter, of El-Al business passenger traffic, will start looking for alternatives...

Are there other guys here from the high-tech insustry who feel as bad as I do about this? What do you guys think ???

As one of the High Tech Travellers, I dont agree with you...

Taking K or Q means making any change cost $$$, So taking in account
that every change that was made will cost money, S is still a good alternative.

The amount of K, V seats on every flight is limited, So If book K and change
your ticket, If you dont have K on the new flight you pay the difference plus a small fine (it will be more expensive than taking the Q or S in advance).

As for taking Q, You get same points as S, And you can upgrade but you
need pay double the points.

If you are a corporate flyer, you have a corporate discount (8 to 18%)
on the Y or S class official prices (the discount is not availble on lower
classes) + the price of possible ticket change = Lower or Equal price to
Q Class...

I think the last few moves done by EL-AL are for the benefit for all of us,
And i truly believe that quite soon upgrades on Q will return.
(EL-AL need to try and eliminate as many as possible outside FF points)

I am not sure how it works in your company, however in my they always choose the lowest rate available, taking the risk of paying the change fee if needed. My opinion as a passenger is not taken into account.

A real life example from a flight I need to take next week to Bangkok - price difference between S to Q is $300, and another $150 between Q to K (after the corporate discount). That's sums up to $450, so even for any other corporate its reasonable to take the risk of paying $170 change fee if needed.

I don't know when was the last time you checked availability... this month's flights are empty, for example I cheked today the availability of K class seats on the Saturday night TLV-HKG (a flight which is usually so full) and there are more than 10 seats on T (loest class, but requires a minimum stay so irrelvant for most high tech travellers) more than 10 seas on K and more than 10 seats on Q....

So I'm sure many companies will start booking the lower fare classes soon and means we'll loose our status, we won't get upgrades, and practically we won't have any good reason to fly LY....

I think we should put some pressure on LY to allow last minute upgrades on K and Q, and consider increasing the points on K (or any no minimum class) otherwise they'll loose us as passengers....

While we do that sometimes, most of my flights are highly dynamic and we'd rather pay for a higher and more flexible class. 100% of my flights in the past 22 months has been to the east and until there is some serious competition I don't see any pressure we could exert changing things. The move made sense for LY since they need to deal with smaller travel budgets for many of the companies.

BTW Welcome to FT, lyfqtv!

the flight to HKG might have been empty because of the new year's holiday which is this week. so maybe next week is also slow.
but indeed you can see that the saturday flight to HKG has changed... you can even get W seats , which was nowhere to be found in the past.

the market has changed dramatically !
last month i took the TLV-HKG flight, tuesday till sunday and had to pay 2200$, now you get indeed get T/V for half.

If you have no choice how will LY lose you?

I guess the only people LY might lose will be those who can chose which Carrier they want to fly and as long as Carrier X is the same or less then LY, unless a person is Senior enough where they can fly whomever no matter what

Otherwise LY wins as Im sure most companies have a deal with LY and will decide which Carriers its employees can fly on

Seems the only ones that will lose will be those people who cant chose on whom they want to fly

I dont if you guys noticed, but in the past 3 months, EL-AL upgrades
even J, V, K and Q when possible (If economy is overbooked or business is very empty, FF will be upgraded no matter if he have K, Q or J (I know one member in this forum that can confirm this...)).

I Myself, Was Upgraded from S to Business and on the Gate from Business
to First at least 2 times...

I have been upgraded a few times recently, even on T tickets, without even having to pay the Last Minute Upgrade.

I'm sorry to say but this is an example of the typical Israeli who does not pay a dime for his travels but thinks he deserves the world in return. I'm sure that the CEO and CFO of your company are pleased that the restrictions for minimum stay were lifted and the prices are down. El Al will listen to those CEOs and CFOs who actually pay for the employee's tickets, way before they would listen to the "poor" employees who have to travel in the class their company booked for them, cannot upgrade and will need more flights to reach their reward tickets.

If you have missed the news, it is a global trend among airlines to cut back on FF benefits for the lower paid classes. This includes miles/points earned and upgrade opportunities.

If your company insists on paying the lowest available fare for your travels, I would think of changing the company or changing my preferred airline to one that gives me the best opportunities for the tickets my company is willing to buy for me. Once again, El Al's new fare structure is actually very good for your company and they are those who pay. Somehow, I'm pretty sure that the company will try keep you flying LY for the same reasons ...

Any problems with Israelis here? 8-)
I dont pay a dime and i expect the world in return, I dont see any problem
with that, Its not different from Israelis that pay and want the world in return
as well!

Many of us work very hard, and fly quite a lot, CEO/CFOs dont care about that, They dont give bonus on that, so the little we get such as hotel or
FF points is very useful for us when we need them.
I dont see anything wrong with that.

Although I'm unemployed right now, my typical job involves some travel, extending to the 120% travel job I had back in 2001-2003 (350 days a year on the road including weekends, on a plane at least once or twice a week). I'm on the same wagon here.

By CEO/CFO I also mean your project manager, or anyone in charge of the budget of the project or product you are working on. If that was the way I appreciated my superiors, I would seriously consider switching jobs.

I don't have any problem with us traveling employees, collecting miles and using them for our own vacations. I'm still enjoying the almost million miles I accumulated during my extended travel period. I haven't paid airfare for any vacation I took in the last 3 years (I did pay too many taxes) and even most hotel stays were covered by FF points.

I do have a problem with the naivety of one thinking the airline should cater for him because he flies a lot on the lowest fare possible. Airlines in these economic times cater more for those who pay more and less for those who pay less. As mentioned above, this is a global trend, not a brilliant initiative by El Al.

Back in 2003, it was the beginning of those 50% accumulations for lower fares, and other restrictions. Even then, I have never even considered asking my company to pay extra $$$ for an upgradable fare and even sometimes paid out of my own pocket for the upgrade if I needed or wanted it. When I had a choice, I chose the airline that fitted me the most for my needs (it was Continental at that time). When I did not have a choice, well, I couldn't do anything anyway ...

And by the way, I am an Israeli for 34 out of my 35 and change years, so I can complain about Israelis as much as I want

I wonder if the missing year is the travel time you did in 2001--2003, where time on LY plane/lounge is still counted as being Israeli?

And after living with Belgians for a year and a half, I found out that they have no problems with complaints about Belgium from non-Belgians (as long as you do not insult their beer).

I know that in case of overbooking any class can be upgraded and then no points are charged (BTW - even if one passenger only was upgraded due to overbooking, all passengers upgraded with points in the airport, won't be charged), also in the last few months, as business class is empty they operate economy service in the rear section of the business class of the 777s, mainly in the TLV-BKK route, and then any FF (regardless of booking class) can enjoy a business class seat with economy service.
However, I never heard of someone being upgraded from K or Q if economy wasn't full - did anyone here enjoy such an upgrade?


How is the fact I'm not paying for my ticket related to the fact that I think that if LY changes ticketing rules for business passengers, it should change also FF rules accordingly ???
Did I say companies should pay higher fares to help me with my benefits?

I am very happy that my company can save money. I'm very unhappy from the fact this affecting my FF benefits.

My complaint is to LY... I can choose to fly LH or BA or OS all provide similar pricing and have better service, better food, etc... and the only reason I and many of the other high-tech travellers fly LY is because their FF program used to provide the best benefits...

Yes, I have seen it with a friend of mind on the same flight as i am, from V to Business, And with two others (one of them is a member here) from J to Business.
I also heard from other friends that had similar situations.


In general i am quite happy with EL-AL as for service and food, Its true i
fly most of the time business or first, but even on economy they are more
than ok...