Significant "Enhancements" to Emirates Skywards

[florencenulens]

Hello all,

I am completely miffed! I have been flying with Emirates for about 10 years and have had a Citibank Emirates card for over 2 years - but I am currently considering moving to another airline. This is due to the overhaul of the Skywards program on the 1st of Jan 2010.

For the same flight I have taken every year (MEL-DUS) around the same time of year (May-July) I will now earn more than half the tier miles LESS, and will only earn a bit more than half of the Skywards miles I have been for the last decade, while paying the same fare as I always have!

This is due the the introduction of the Flex vs Saver fares. In the time I fly, I can only opt for a Saver fare now. There is no possibility of choosing a Flex fare, though a Flex fare will still get me around the same skywards miles and about 3 000 tier miles less, but will likely cost much more. Doesn't seem fair to me!

I am incredibly disappointed with Emirates, and can't believe that 10 years of loyalty gets this kind of appreciation! Has anyone else come across this issue?

So I am considering changing to another airline with a credit card combo - does anyone have any recommendations?

Thanks!

[Dalescott]

Have also noticed that their Fares have gone thru the roof, particularly the J fares. Also you need more points now than you did before the skywards program was altered. We have 65000 points, and that will not cover the upgrade that we want. We are now looking at other airlines, particularly SAS and AF. To get to Scotland, as SAS have a J fare for $5400, with a stopover in Copenhagen, and BK. Also their Planes out of Melbourne are some of the oldest in their fleet. They are now loosing some market share, as they often have empty seats in J class, when their planes fly from Asia to Melb. I can not speak for other cities in Australia.

[Moopere]

I've been struggling for a year to find a reason to join Skywards - its just not big enough or rewarding enough from the research I've done to really work for me based out of Australia. If you go all in with Skywards the earn/burn does seem reasonable, but you are then completely at their mercy (as you have seen).

Perhaps Velocity would work for you? Can burn points against EK or EY (+others of course). As Velocity seems to be partnering with everyone these days the opportunity for points earning must be increasing too.

We seem to be hearing similar stories recently from several airlines - loyalty is just not working for them obviously and they are pulling pack from the whole loyalty game.

[extracta]

Hello all,

So I am considering changing to another airline with a credit card combo - does anyone have any recommendations?

Thanks!

Get an AMEX that can have the points transferred to a selection of carriers, or accrue points to QFF or Velocity if that suits.

Search around for the best deals when you want to fly and don't be caught in the FF trap of having to use a certain airline (or alliance) because that is where you accrue your FF points.

[adampenrith]

FF programs are designed to create loyalty, and for customers to automatically buy flights on their airline without consideraton of others.

What the airlines forget when they look at the bottom line is changes to affect the customers they are trying to make or keep as loyal.

Have been burnt so many times by different programs.

We collected points on AMEX and the plan was to move them to NZ - promotion comes along transfer your points get a 25% bonus, so we did as we could use them within 3 years and that was our plan.

Buy SYD LHR Y and use our points for confirmed space in J.

Upgrades then became standby. No use to us at all, could not even contemplate a long haul in J.

So we burnt them SYD DPS SYD J on AN and lots of TT on Y which was fine but not as good as a confirmed upgrade on a SYD LHR.

We now collect our credit card points on Velocity, as it seems more flexible. Life the lifetime of the points.

We have done many TT on EK since we gave up on our NZ loyalty (due to changes to their program), and have used the points either for upgrades or purchases in the High Street Program. We have a EK card with Citi - but the changes are apalling, and we are not currently considering anymore flights with EK.

We travel to DPS frequently, and this year we were finally able to join the GA program. Previously we had collected GA points on NW but lost those due to GA being dumped from their program, so our burn factor went out the door.

Got all excited as we would qualify for GA Gold this year, the morning we were departing on our Gold Qualifying trip, got an email changes to the program effective tomorrow - Gold qualification goes from 20K miles to 30K miles.

Burnt again. Yes we still get the opportunity to burn etc, but remain as Silver members, we get lots of status benefits like great seating row 1 is the norm, but not that nice Gold Card.

I cannot believe that the airlines are so short sighted to make these changes to their programs and annoy their loyal customers. With GA we will continue to fly them as they are the only decent product out of SYD - GA J vs JQ Star Class - does not even compute, but if we had options we would consider them.

Airlines if you read these posts, consider the consequences, a customer you already have as loyal is worth so much in your lifetime than trying had to gain a new customer with a good deal.