Knobbgb

Sorry, I've asked before but with no luck - is there a way to tell that your claim was actually denied rather than just not processed yet? I did read that there would be some way of tracking the claims in the new system, but that's obviously not happening yet. Has anyone actually had a "denied" message or email?

intuition

Not AFAIK. The process has been
1. claim
2. wait 14 days
3. If no miles, call and ask why

Last time I called on a claim that was denied, I was advised to wait 30 days before calling back and check status on the new retro-retro-claim.

homerjsimpso

Hey everyone,

I've been fighting with Aegean since last year to credit a codeshare for my flight from IAH to EZE (United UA 2115, departing Oct 16 2014). Unofortunately I lost my boarding pass. I have gotten email confirmations from United that I was on the flight, as well as printouts from their internal systems that I had 'lifeted' or boarded the flight. I've filed a retro claim with these documents on Dec 30 2014 with Aegean and although they said they have a 7-10 day processing time, they have far exceeded that. I tried calling Aegean Miles and Bonus, and they say that they have a department which deals with that but they cannot transfer me to them (conveniently) and I should wait. I've emailed them daily for the last 2 weeks to no success. Since this is the last flight I need to get my status updated to gold, I'm getting frustrated as I'll be flying soon and would like to have this by then. Any advice on how I can get this processed ASAP?

NWIFlyer

homerjsimpso, welcome to FT and the A3 forum.

It sounds like you're probably trying to call the USA number (or at least a non-Greece number) for A3 if they are unable to transfer you to the Miles & Bonus department, or you're calling outside the M&B team's normal working hours (9am-5pm Monday to Friday, Greece time).

If you want to understand the status of your claim quickly, I'd recommend calling the main Greek number during the M&B team's working hours, and then you should have no issue being put through - I have never personally ever had a problem.

What I can say is that daily e-mails will not speed the process - quite the opposite, because you'll only tie up A3's limited resources even more ... you're not dealing with an airline such as UA which has hundreds of associates who can deal with this!

intuition

Welcome to Flyertalk and the A3 forum, homerjsimpso!

Retro-claim with A3 can be a frustrating process sometimes.

Some advice:

a) The processing time is up to 14 days for the other carrier to respond to the claim. Then there may be another up to 14 days before A3 credits your account.

b) After 14 days the callcenter can see the reply from the other carrier. If something went wrong, they can tell you what, and give you instructions on how to proceed.

c) Sending daily e-mails will not help. They do respond to email, but the lag is considerably longer than you think. It can take weeks before you get an email response, and your daily mail will just make thinks worse. It is always best to call.

d) A3 usually does not require boarding passes for retroclaim. However, if operating carrier denies your claim then they will ask you to send photo copies of BP. Since you've lost them you may be out of luck.

benberg2013

First of all call main greece M&B (+302106261000, then choose option 2) , if nothing comes out of that call, try retroclaiming again but just put in a different date - like one day before or one day after, but make sure you put in the right ticket number, then when they search using your ticket no, they will get the correct date, and things may hopefully start rolling again from there. (this idea has been mentioned here before - see post #60 earlier from ringbahn)

homerjsimpso

I actually have been calling the Greek number, and selecting option 2. Again, they say they cannot transfer me to the right department. Quite ironic since it says I have been connected to the miles and bonus department, and yet they say they need to send the request via internal messaging system to the right department :-) The number I'm calling is +30-21-0626-1000 and today I tried their office number as well +30-21-0626-1700. Both lines I get the same answer when I ask them about the claim. Weird that they can't even give me a status update...

intuition

You probably reached reservations which is open 24H.

ringbahn

Welcome to FT homerjsimpso.Perhaps you can try a new retroclaim.Just change the date of the flight by one and leave the other dates as before-this worked for me .

FlyKiwi

I have now precisely 10 more days to go until I see if my October LH flights will be credited as per the please wait 30 days scenario offered by A3.
Meantime when I flew DBX BKK I did it on A3 as that flight would put me back to Gold for another year through until 2016. So I asked the BKK lady to put the BKK - AKL flight through to LH. Hilariously the DBX-BKK has also been eaten by M&M and so I still need 6000 odd points to requalify for 2016 with M&B.....lets see if they can credit my october flights which will also requalify me......I'll let you know

NWIFlyer

This isn't a surprise - once there's any hint of a M&M number having been anywhere near the booking, pretty much everything on that booking sticks to it!

Anyone thinking of splitting a booking between FFP's might well be better off retroclaiming - although admittedly relying on A3's procedures at the moment requires a degree of endurance ...

FlyKiwi

As promised here is the update from A3 after waiting the 30 days for them to follow up on my flights which are due points from October.......
"Dear Mr. ******,
Thank you for your reply.
We would like to inform you that we have not received a reply from the operating carrier yet, however, we will send a reminder.
We thank you for your patience and we assure you that as soon as we will receive a positive reply, the relevant miles will be accrued in your account.
We are happy to assist you in the future!
Yours sincerely
XXXXXXXXXXX"

Speechless describes me that is possibly one of the least informative replies from customer service one could get.....
What can I say but my next flights are being credited to LH and I will revert to them.....pathetic

Knobbgb

A couple of interesting point with retro-claim that may help others:

I just called Aegean about two flights that did not credit. One was an Olympic domestic sector and the other was Aegean (international) which had been upgraded from U class to I class with the free vouchers.

In the first case, the rep. told me that the retro-claaim failed because I did not put a FOUR digit flight number into retro-claim. It seems that since some flight numbers can be four digits, this is REQUIRED by the retro-claim app. so flight OA63 (or OA063 as my boarding card reads) MUST be entered into retro-claim as 0063. I'v claimed A3 flight by entering just three digits in the past so maybe this is just an Olympic thing. Comfusing...

Secondly, the retro-claim for my upgraded Aegean flight failed because I should have entered the ORIGINAL ticket number (which was for the original U class booking) NOT the new ticket number of the I class ticket. I queried this - it seems very odd that I should enter the number of a ticket that was, in effect, cancelled before I flew but the rep just said "this is how it works, sorry". There was no feedback at all as to why the flights didn't credit automatically.

Interestingly I took another U to I class upgraded flight last Sunday and it credited automatically after two days. Others here have commented that such flights always have to be retro-claimed, but that's clearly not the case.

I hope all that makes sense and is somewhat useful to somebody.

benberg2013

I really don't think this is part of the reason why they didn't credit, as I NEVER put in 4 digits as the flight number when retro claiming, for example, from IST - JFK with flight number TK3 I just put 3 and never have problems.

This IS quite strange, but it could have to do with the fact that I class does not officially receive any award miles, as it is "reward class" , but since the reward part is only the upgrade, and you did actually pay for this ticket, they would give you miles, but since your new ticket is I class they can't credit for that ticket, so by entering your old ticket number with U class which shows you do earn miles on this ticket, they would be able to credit your account. Something like that...

NWIFlyer

I guess it depends on what exactly you're expecting them to say. They don't have any information, so they can't pass it to you - although granted putting some sort of timescale on it might have been useful. They've also said they'll chase it for you - that seems quite informative to me.

Based on your past experience, you may well get better auto/retro-claiming performance from M&M - but in return for that service level you'll also have a 100k figure to reach *G, coupled with a FFP that's just undergone a massive devaluation. I can see the attraction of it if you do enough flying to make HON Circle, or perhaps loads of 125 mile earning sectors to earn Frequent Traveller for domestic (and some international) lounge access, but for *G given the qualification requirements - I'm struggling. Presumably there was a reason why you left M&M to (try and) credit to M&B in the first place. If that reason no longer applies, then clearly you're better off returning to M&B to build your mileage stack there and forgetting about *G status. If it still exists, maybe there's a case for persevering.

Mind you, at least the answer you've got seems to directly relate to the question asked - that never used to happen with Flying Blue!