US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Trouble in PIT with Special Services

I am gold preferred and my father and I have the same first name, although different initials. Now to the trouble...Recently I was travelling through Pittsburgh to San Francisco. During my connection, I went to the Special Services counter to inquire about possible standby travelling on my return flight (which was the next morning..it turns out the flight was full, but that is irrelevant). Anyways, the woman told me that standby travel was not allowed anymore per the new rules...I told the agent I purchased my ticket prior to the rule changes, and to check the fare rules. When she looked, she saw I was right and told me there were 3 coach seats left for my return flight. I went to the bathroom, and realized I forgot to check the availibility of first class on the morning flight. When I went back to ask the woman, she had written on a ticket envelope my DM Account number, my father's DM Account Number and my sister's account number. When I asked her what she was doing with them, she denied that they were my family's account numbers. I asked her again, noting that I KNEW that they were, she said "Is there anything else I can help you with, otherwise please leave." I was outraged so I went to my departure gate and asked for the airport manager's name and phone number. When I inquired, she said she did not have a direct number, but instead could get the manager down at the gate for me to talk to. When the manager came down, I asked her why her employees were writing down my family's account numbers, she replied, "We suspect some fraud in the dividend miles program, specifically with your account and your father's account." I asked her what could she possibly mean, and she replied "There is no way a 16 year old could be Gold Preferred. We know you are using your father's account to gain miles for him and use upgrades. We are conducting a severe audit of your accounts" I was OUTRAGED. I told the airport manager that I was who my account said I was and that I could prove it. I told her I could show her my license and dividend miles account number and my student advantage card, but still she said that wouldn't prove anything. I told her to look at the student advantage postings in my account...there is no way my father could have received them. She told me it was internal and it had nothing to do with me. My flight to SFO was about to leave (they were holding it while I was talking with her), so I finally boarded. What should I do?? Has this happened to anybody else before? I am sorry for the long post but I am very displeased.

If you're not doing anything wrong, you probably don't have anything to worry about ... all of the airlines audit suspicious activity in accounts. Suspicious does not mean illegal, just suspicious, and certainly you would agree that a 16 year old GP with the same name as his father, who I'm guessing is also elite, may appear suspicious.

I'm guessing that the Special Service agent must have seen something in your profile to prompt them to write down the account numbers and was just making sure they didn't miss anything, they were not likely the ones who started the audit or were doing it, it's pretty obvious to me that the information about the audit was already in your profile and the agents at the airport were just looking at what was already there.

I am a sixteen year old gold preferred customer too. I usually get the worst service in PIT agents there usually question my status and give me a hard time. I SEA I once had an agent tell me I was in the wrong line when I tried to check in at the preferred line. I just simply pulled out my card and it was all okay. One time as I was putting my bag in the overhead bin a FA came up and told me I couldn't put my bag there. I told her I was in FC and she asked to see my BP after she saw it she blushed and aplogized. All in all it isn't that bad being a 16 US2, despite popular opinion I like PHL best because they never give me grief about my age. They just accept it and go on. I wish you good luck with your account audit, and please email me I would enjoy talking to you about your expirences with US.

I think the practice mentioned happens way too much...but it does seem the manager they hauled in went way too far! I'm a silver - almost gold - and have had the runaround with the elite lines several times now, exclusively in Cleveland. I'm 16 also.

If you guys think the status is bad, try and explain to them a mileage run. I bet I've heard it all...total disbelief when PHL-SEA and SEA-CLT spit out at the same time on a sameday.

[This message has been edited by TimCLE (edited 09-03-2002).]

The whole place is like the Gestapo. From picture ID in the Club(undoubtedly in response to terrorist plots to break the company by consuming all that mystery mix) to the recent management rantings about disloyal customers gaming them. I went on for months about upgrade monkey business, specifically bogus 0007 bookings, and they could care less. Now, all of a sudden, everybody is a bad guy. These people should be working for ConAir.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by deelmakur:
The whole place is like the Gestapo. From picture ID in the Club...</font>

You know... they could have made that a positive -- I'd be thrilled to be able to consolidate my CP card, My Club card and my DM Visa card onto one piece of plastic with my mug on it that security would accept as an ID. Ok, so the bit about security will never happen... but at least that isn't the airline's fault for a change.

Onboard every flight is the Headphone Gestapo. If you don't return the headset you were loaned, your seat number will be electronically tracked back to your record and you will not be allowed onboard another flight until the headset is returned or a one-time adminstration fee of $100 is paid.

The headphones are free on Shuttle, so if you're ever in a common gate area, head over to grab a pair....

DCA Express agents were horrible....1159 Dash 8 to PHL delayed "indefinitely", would NOT rebook me even on company metal (because of Z class tix?), even on a 1:15 to CLT which would've gotten me into SFO 45 minutes late. Instead, they waited until any other possible option was exhausted and finally booked me to a PIT flight that arrived 4 hours later. Idiots.

Do you 16 year-old guys mind if I ask how you are travelling so much in High School? Skipping Geometry for a mileage run? http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I'm usually silver, but I am going to "Get Out More" which will run me up to Gold. I did a great mileage run on July 4th up to SEA, went to DEN in August (via PIT and PHL, of course) and I'm working on either a 7-segment BNA or two 6-segment flights over to BWI.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by TomBascom:
You know... they could have made that a positive -- I'd be thrilled to be able to consolidate my CP card, My Club card and my DM Visa card onto one piece of plastic with my mug on it that security would accept as an ID.</font>

But that would have required somebody with brains in Crystal City.

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Do you 16 year-old guys mind if I ask how you are travelling so much in High School? Skipping Geometry for a mileage run?
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One of these 16 yr old US2s is my brother. He legitimately earns his miles on family vacations and trips to visit me. We have an entire family of U flyers. He is a FF whiz! Loves to travel. Forget giving him anything but money when a special/gift occasion comes around. Just let him buy a plane ticket! He basically saves all his money and then does weekend trips and mileage runs. He manages all of our family FF accounts, and books trips itineraries for all of our friends as well. I would bet on him to come up with the best overall itinerary based on price/FF points/class of service over any seasoned travel professional any day.

Your unfortunate situation reminds me of a similar problem while checking in at LGA several years ago with upgraded tickets.

The agent, upon reviewing my wife’s and my tickets, went into an absolute rage and accusatorly screamed that he had “caught” two who were guilty of fraudulently altering tickets. He then loudly announced that he was “cancelling” our tickets and that we’d be required to pay $2,200 for F tickets for our return flight. Of course, everyone in the check-in lines stared.

After a supervisor arrived, I learned what the problem was. Since this was the old days, some ticket changes were accomplished by “stickering” them with change stickers. LGA apparently, had not used these for some time. At any rate, the supervisor called the issuing agent at the outbound airport and confirmed that they were indeed correctly issued by airline personnel. The man behind me, who also was a lawyer, said that he would be glad to be a witness for a slander suit against the airline (FYI, you can’t falsely accuse anyone of committing a crime and communicate that fact to third persons).

Once the supervisor told the agent he was wrong, he got very red in the face, began to cry, and literally ran to the back and out a door. He never did, however, apologize.

Although my wife and I were very embarrassed (for us and the agent) we never did anything further. In those days, USAir was great and we really liked the employees. And frankly, everybody can have a very bad day once in a while.

However, I think that your post exemplifies that today some employees view travel as “us vs. them” at the airport.

If you’ve done nothing wrong, then, at a minimum, I would write Consumer Services about your experience. Under any circumstances, though, I do not think that employees should EVER publicly accuse passengers of illegal activity. That runs a big legal risk for the employee personally and for the airline. Nonetheless, I still hear some of that at check-in today.

US Airways employees and passengers are under a lot of stress these days and mutual understanding is probably appreciated. Just my 2 cents.

[This message has been edited by TPA us ff (edited 09-04-2002).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by WAFLYGIRL:
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Do you 16 year-old guys mind if I ask how you are travelling so much in High School? Skipping Geometry for a mileage run?
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One of these 16 yr old US2s is my brother. He legitimately earns his miles on family vacations and trips to visit me. We have an entire family of U flyers. He is a FF whiz! Loves to travel. Forget giving him anything but money when a special/gift occasion comes around. Just let him buy a plane ticket! He basically saves all his money and then does weekend trips and mileage runs. He manages all of our family FF accounts, and books trips itineraries for all of our friends as well. I would bet on him to come up with the best overall itinerary based on price/FF points/class of service over any seasoned travel professional any day.</font>

That is basically what I do. My sister lives in Washington, DC, and I visit her about 5 times a year with the most mileage-friendly routes (BOS-LGA-PHL-BWI) or (PWM-PIT-PHL-DCA). My family also goes to Florida twice a year for more travel. I am the same as your brother- I like to get money for my birthday and stuff to spend on travelling and I also make the reservations for everyone in my family and manage their accounts. In fact, your brother sounds alot like me! In usually just travel during school vacation and weekends to accrue miles. For instance in April I went- BOS-LGA-PHL-BWI one way and BWI-LGA-DCA-PHL-PWM on the return. Like Tim, I am usually silver, but because I've gotten out so much recently I have made gold. I just hope the "audit" does see how much I have gotten out lately.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by TPA us ff:
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US Airways employees and passengers are under a lot of stress these days and mutual understanding is probably appreciated. </font>


The amount of stress they employees are under in no way excuses or makes the public humiliation of a paying customer acceptable.

I would suggest a letter to customer service would be in order

To make a blanket statement that a 16-year old can't be Gold is just inane. Many kids today fly with their parents during school vacations. Heck, my 8-year niece is Gold thanks to 2 Europe trips during vacations and several triple mile shuttles. My 15-year old son (also Gold) was able to upgrade his Dad on a trip to CA last week. He felt pretty good about that. He's also excited about his mileage run to London next weekend to get American Plat since we won't be flying U much anymore. 3 scheduled trips left and then it's AA.

Jeez, my CAT has flown segments on US, complete with DM credit (pre-9/11). I have no trouble believing that a 16 year old could get status. Think Getting Out a lot from SFO-LGW and back.

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Saving the world, one clue at a time.