Skywards Changing for Bad or worse ?

I’m a Gold card member and im trying to understand how this will impact me. The 10 key changes is not that clear and the website is poorly designed. The cynic in me says that economy class passengers will suffer and cheap tickets will become harder to procure and will cost more.

With a declining service proposition this is not the right time to start this venture.

Airpocket the answer is they always follow others fellow path! They think that is just in the beginning people get upset, then it will past and in the long run we will accept the changes. I do have Gold with EK and Plat with Flying Blue, but with the new changes in their program I will look for other option. The worst changes is the Flying Blue less earnings miles and more miles for spending. I just wish someway us consumers can join force together.

Spoke to both the reservations and Skywards representatives today as I tried a ‘dummy’ booking for February 2010 on the Emirates website, however the reservations website is not yet designed for the new changes. As a result you cannot work out the impact of booking a ticket in any class to see what options it will provide for the pax.
Neither the reservations agents or Skywards could clarify exactly how a ticket would be displayed or the impact of the options to a Pax !

A classic case of the management releasing a new scheme without briefing the employees adequately or having the systems ready to handle the changes!

I foresee the same nonsense that we have with the BA Executive Club at present with the lack of clarity and transparency in the schemes.

I envisage and expect the worst!

I read the release with interest. The way I interpret it, F&C flights will receive a greater percentage of miles flown. Economy will be split into Flexible (higher price) and Economy (Discount). Reading between the lines, it seems as if basic Economy will still attract one Skywards mile for each mile flown, while Flexible will receive a small premium. Looks like they will also have more frequent “specials” during which time extra Skywards miles can be earned. I reckon we should wait for the finer detail before criticisising too heavily. My only concern is that they are starting to complicate what is currently a very simple and easy to understand system.

Agreed.
Perhaps they’re trying to pique our interest in the new scheme by teasing? This would explain the lack of detail so far. This would also explain why they’re doing it almost three months in advance of the launch date. But it does appear to be a little ham-fisted.

Hello (Tom Otley, here – editor)

I’ve been following this, and thought it would make a good news story if we can get a comment or interview from Skywards. To that end I am hoping to interview someone from Skywards early next week.

If there are any questions you would like to address to Skywards, please post them on this thread and we’ll see whether we can get some answers.

Many thanks

I think that’s true, but then it is something that all airlines try and discourage – “throwaway ticketing.” If someone does it, then they will not be credited the miles for the whole of a return part of a trip, for instance.