ElAl Frequent Flyer Awards worth less than a Big Mac at the airport

Posted on April 30, 2008 by elliot

Thats it?

Yes. Amazing Fact. Do the math:

Lowest fare ticket to London earns 25 points one way. 36 Oneway flights gives you 900 points required for the “bonus fare”. Bonus fare is $340. Regular fare is about $650. So you save $310 = about $9 bonus. Or “half-Chai” in appeal-speak. Thats about 30 NIS which can’t even buy a hamburger at the airport.

And don’t forget - ElAl miles expire after 3 years no matter what you do. So, if you can’t squeeze in enough flights in that window, you get their most popular award - BUPKIS.

Compare to any airline in the industry or even in the oneworld or star alliance and 10 round trips to Europe will get you a FREE ticket to Europe or Asia. Or - two round trips to California gets a FREE ticket to Singapore.

To be fair - ElAl does have the advantage of special upgrades and perks for its real frequent travelers.

Pass it on.

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One Response to “ElAl Frequent Flyer Awards worth less than a Big Mac at the airport”

  1. Yossi, on April 30th, 2008 at 4:49 pm Said:

    ElAl has a long history of running a frequent “FRIER” program. Brief recap:
    1. First to charge to join (since Pan Am pre-1980)
    2. First to throw members out for not flying enough. On other airlines - even being dead does not get you thrown out.
    3. Changed from a free ticket to a bonus ticket without notifying customers. Whats the difference? Bonus means you pay a significant amount of the fare (approx 50%).
    4. Visa tie in requires spending over a million shekels to get anything of any value.

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