US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Above and beyond??

Received this in my EStatement today:

THANK YOU FOR GOING ABOVE AND BEYOND

The Preferred Miles and Segments shown below are those you flew above and beyond 100,000 miles and/or 100 segments in 2002. These were added to your 2003 balance on March xx, 2003.

xxxxx Preferred Miles
xx Preferred Segments

Thanks to your extraordinary loyalty, you have already qualified for Chairman's Preferred status through February of 2005! We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you on board another US Airways flight soon.
-------------------

OK, they added the correct number of miles from last year that I was due under this promo......but I'm CP through 2005? With these miles added to my account, I don't even have 50K miles this year with US.

I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but if I have CP through 2005, I may shift some business to other carriers....especially those flying JETS out of PIT!!

I got the same message and will try and hold them to it http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif. I assume it is a typo because I had 120 segments and even though I GOM it was not in CPRich's league. I will make Gold easy but CP will be tight.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by HPTunco:
Received this in my EStatement today:

THANK YOU FOR GOING ABOVE AND BEYOND

The Preferred Miles and Segments shown below are those you flew above and beyond 100,000 miles and/or 100 segments in 2002. These were added to your 2003 balance on March xx, 2003.

xxxxx Preferred Miles
xx Preferred Segments

Thanks to your extraordinary loyalty, you have already qualified for Chairman's Preferred status through February of 2005! We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you on board another US Airways flight soon.</font>

I received the same email today. I'm thankful they have extended my Chairman's Preferred status until 2005, but I'm with you about using other carriers to gain some mileage elsewhere. But I've noticed for my needs United seems to be my alternate carrier. Oh well!? Guess I'll just keep adding to the 58 segments I already have.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I got the same message. I will probably need the (roughly 20k) "above and beyond" miles they me in order to requalify, so it's nice to know I have it anyway. But I will continue to take US as much as possible.

We better get F in those stupid "RJ's" coming to PIT though!!

If I'm really CP thru 2005, I'm joining Pitflyer on AA for the rest of this year. Might as well shoot for EXP while I'm at it.

Besides which, I can start faxing my AA receipts to consumer affairs and cc'ing Dave's office and tell them it's status quo until they stop messing with my airport http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif.

------------------
Saving the world, one clue at a time.

I'm in the I got the same message and hope they stick to it club too.

I got the same message as well, and if this is true, have I already flown 97,000 preferred miles for this year in vain? What is that going to go towards? Is anyone daring to call and ask about this?

[This message has been edited by umguy (edited 04-10-2003).]

Ok, I couldn't resist I called CP. And the lady I spoke with said that what was in the email was the same as the company document that they recieved. She said either they are being really nice to CP's who flew the 100,000 or 100 segments while they were in Chap 11, or someone made a HUGE mistake. I then asked what about my preferred miles for this year, and she replied that they would probably count for 2006.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by umguy:
Ok, I couldn't resist I called CP. And the lady I spoke with said that what was in the email was the same as the company document that they recieved. She said either they are being really nice to CP's who flew the 100,000 or 100 segments while they were in Chap 11, or someone made a HUGE mistake. I then asked what about my preferred miles for this year, and she replied that they would probably count for 2006.</font>

2006?? Geez, by then they'll have one morning flight from PIT to PHL and CLT each and one returning in the afternoon from each. I too need to find out who my airline of the future is out of PIT.

Most of my tier miles this year have been international on UA, which I used my US DM# for miles. UA's pretty risky.....maybe I should go for Continental? If I have to connect, Cleveland and Newark are just as convenient (and better) than PHL.

As a frequent critic, I also believe you should give them their due when they do something positive. Assuming it is not a mistake (sort of speaks volumes that this is the first thing many of us thought), and realizing they don't do things like that unless they are worried about losing customers to competitors, it is, nonetheless, a very nice perk. Many of us have begun to explore alternatives. In my case, I have already diverted my east coast to Seattle business to Alaska Airlines (4 trips since Jan.1), who have been very receptive to getting it. We should, however, be careful in telling US in open forum that our response to this is to use the opportunity to rack up miles on other carriers. That's a good way to make sure they don't do things like this again. I plan to respond by givng them more business, although not the transcon flying I have moved to AS. They provide a level of service unknown to US (glassware, gourmet meals, hot towels, etc.). I'll take that as long as it lasts, but I also think US has done a good thing here for many of us, and it will make a difference in some of my plans.

If US really did extend CP status for those who continued to fly, then they are starting to get the message. However, my assumption is that it is a typo until I see it in writing from Ben. It could be a HUGE mistake. If true, I will divert more business travel to US.

If this isn't an error, it's a very nice gesture from US.

This means that current CP's will have that status for about a year after US enters the Star Alliance. And the benefits that entails a Gold Star Alliance member!

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ClueByFour:
If I'm really CP thru 2005, I'm joining Pitflyer on AA for the rest of this year. Might as well shoot for EXP while I'm at it.

Besides which, I can start faxing my AA receipts to consumer affairs and cc'ing Dave's office and tell them it's status quo until they stop messing with my airport http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif.

</font>

Welcome AAboard, there's AAlways more room through coAAch for you!

I'm not even close to being in your folks positions, but I'm not sure if this is a bright promotion for those who are; I mean, I would think most of us are still a bit uneasy about USAirways' survival, and then to give your best customers a free pass to more perks for another year.... interesting tactic to say the least. Here's hoping for you guys it is till 2005 so you have the option of ditching if needed.

Hey! I went above & beyond too, but have not gotten the email. Anybody else?

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by MHTFlyer:
Hey! I went above & beyond too, but have not gotten the email. Anybody else?</font>

It was listed in the most recent E-Statement.

[This message has been edited by planeluvr (edited 04-11-2003).]

How many CP's racked up their status with GOM last year? Including status through 2006 that was a MOAP (Mother Of All Promotions)!!

I'd be very interested, and motivated to fly US, with some double bonus deals. Flight activity is at an all time low, what can it hurt??

I got the message too! Thanx US! You'll continue to see me on board!

I think we have located the glitch here...Three of us in our office in WV are Chairman that exceeded the 100K miles or 100 segments. We did not, however, eclipse 200K or 200 segments. We all got the notice that we were qualified through 2005.

One of our other co-workers is also a Chairman BUT flew over 200K miles...his email says "You are well on your way to requalifying."

ERGO - They got their coding screwed and flip flopped the message in the April statements...The question is, can they now recant??

It was not on my e-statement and I just looked at my account activity and the 30,000 miles I flew over the 100k have not been added.

Advice?

I fkew 19k over the 100k, thanks to some GOM and frequent family trips to RSW. Those 19k posted last month and got the "Over and Above' notice today with my statement.

Jane in PHL (Pleasure flying only; flying with more pleasure now)

OOPS.....here's the CORRECTION!!

The notification you received regarding the number of Preferred Miles and Segments flown above and beyond 100,000 miles and/or 100 segments in 2002 incorrectly stated that you had qualified for Chairman's Preferred status through February of 2005.

The Preferred Miles and Segments shown below are those you flew above and beyond 100,000 miles and/or 100 segments in 2002. They have been added to your 2003 balance, and you are on your way to enjoying another year of Chairman's Preferred status.

xxxxx Preferred Miles
xxx Preferred Segments

Please accept our sincere apology for any confusion we might have caused. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you on board another US Airways flight soon.

Sincerely,

Michael Isom
Director, Marketing Programs
---------------------------------
I guess we should have kept this quiet!!

And, from the "too good to be true" and "we are overworking the programmer" (emphasis mine) department comes this:

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> snipped the letter, because I was beaten to the punch by about 3 minutes
</font>

You did not really think they'd let GOM happen again, did you http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif?

------------------
Saving the world, one clue at a time.

[This message has been edited by ClueByFour (edited 04-11-2003).]

Now I believe it. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

Back to AA for business.

I just received my "clarification" of yesterday's e-statement granting cp status until February 2005.

Not only are these people absolute, unqualified idiots, and I don't use this term lightly, but to label today's e-mail a "clarification" is at best disingenuous and probably more like deceit/fraud.

And then at the end is the kicker - "Please accept our sincere apology for any confusion we might have caused". Who would have thought that telling me I had CP status until February 2005 when that was in fact not true would cause me any confusion?

This just in. I knew it was too good to be true:

Dear XXX,

The notification you received regarding the number of Preferred Miles and Segments flown above and beyond 100,000 miles and/or 100 segments in 2002 incorrectly stated that you had qualified for Chairman’s Preferred status through February of 2005.
The Preferred Miles and Segments shown below are those you flew above and beyond 100,000 miles and/or 100 segments in 2002. They have been added to your 2003 balance, and you are on your way to enjoying another year of Chairman’s Preferred status.
XXX Preferred Miles
0 Preferred Segments

Please accept our sincere apology for any confusion we might have caused. We appreciate your business and look forward to serving you on board another US Airways flight soon.
Sincerely,
Michael Isom
Director, Marketing Programs

Awfully funny since I did not get the notification and would not have known about it except for FT.....


The notification you received regarding the number of Preferred Miles and
Segments flown above and beyond 100,000 miles and/or 100 segments in 2002
incorrectly stated that you had qualified for Chairman's Preferred status
through February of 2005.

The Preferred Miles and Segments shown below are those you flew above and beyond
100,000 miles and/or 100 segments in 2002. They have been added to your 2003
balance, and you are on your way to enjoying another year of Chairman's
Preferred status.

Please accept our sincere apology for any confusion we might have caused. We
appreciate your business and look forward to serving you on board another US
Airways flight soon.

Sincerely,

Michael Isom

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by no upgrade for u:
Not only are these people absolute, unqualified idiots, and I don't use this term lightly, but to label today's e-mail a "clarification" is at best disingenuous and probably more like deceit/fraud.
</font>

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/rolleyes.gif

Someone types a 5 instead of a 4 and they send out a clarification of that within 48 hours ... I think I'm willing to cut US that much slack ...

You can cut anyone any amount of slack you want, but the fact remains, its amateur hour at US. You send out an obviously unreviewed e-mail to your most important clientele with a huge gaffe in it and NO ONE proofread it or even noticed it?

And the worst thing is, must of us are inured to egregious blunders like this from US, which makes each succeeding "clarification" all that much less incredulous.

What's even more ironic is that most on this board are still walking on pins and needles, scared to question any mileage items because they GOM due to US' stupidity last year. It is all poetic justice.

If they want butts in the seats, a GOMesque program would surely help.

US surely has lots of empty seats.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by no upgrade for u:
You can cut anyone any amount of slack you want, but the fact remains, its amateur hour at US.
</font>

I agree that the email should have been reviewed before it was sent out, but when I received the email last fall explaining that because I was a loyal customer I would be extended this benefit it clearly stated what I could expect from this promotion. I received exactly what was promised, nothing more/nothing less. Somebody made a mistake and I'm sure that person is very aware of their mistake. Would you suggest they lose the job?

My only regret is that by the time I received the email last fall, I was well on my way to giving DL 60 segments in the last quarter of the year. I left for two reasons, Ben B. and the fact I had over 600,000 miles in the account and did not believe I would ever get to use those. I did manage to get in 11 segments on US after
Leo and friends raped skymiles and I started flying US again. It looks like I was wrong on at least one of the above items.

IMHO the offer was very generous and US has fulfilled the offer they made to me and I'm happy with it.

With all this company and their employess are doing to stay alive, why would you expect CP status until 2005 when you did nothing to earn it?

[This message has been edited by longing4piedmont (edited 04-11-2003).]

It was a simple mistake. Can ANYONE here say they were harmed by this error?

Get over it and move on.

Or if you were TRULY harmed by this, fly another airline!!! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/rolleyes.gif


And while the rest of us are moving on, we will remember the fact that every mile we flew over 100k last year will help us re-qualify for next year. And that's assuming that this gesture has not already re-qualified us for next year. It seems like a nice gesture to me. THANK YOU US AIRWAYS!!!

[This message has been edited by geo1005 (edited 04-11-2003).]

The promotion was targeted at very high mile flyers. The error was not transposition of a date. The error was sending it to the wrong subset of "overachievers". Everyone who got the email had exceeded the 100k threshold...not exactly casual customers. In the past, when mistakes have been made,especially in fare ads, airlines, recognizing it was their error, have honored the deal. Once again, this company goes out of it's way to shoot itself in the foot. The previous posts regarding the seeming banality of the whole thing are right, but fail to observe that by resolving it ham-handedly, in a terse email, they violated the cardinal principle of marketing, which is you stand by your mistakes. It was not a smart way to handle it, but then, that has been a topic of discussion on these threads for a long time.

Just a further comment on my observation of poor handling. Often, when you make a marketing error, it goes to so many people that it almost gets lost. This one was targeted, albeit incorrectly, it turns out, to only their best customers. No collateral damage here. We're talking a direct hit. No waste. If you're Delta or Continental, you have to be thinking you couldn't do that kind of damage to a competitor's core custoomer base if you wanted. They should nominate Isom for Salesperson of the month.

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Beckles:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/rolleyes.gif

Someone types a 5 instead of a 4 and they send out a clarification of that within 48 hours ... I think I'm willing to cut US that much slack ...</font>

I think that it was a programming error, actually. There is some ancilliary evidence that somebody reversed an "if then/else" loop.

That said, this is the kind of things that a good electronic commerce enabled business will go way out of its way to avoid at every step of the process.

And yes, this is the type of stuff that people lose jobs over, particularly when it goes out to a few thousand of your most loyal customers. Then again, my shop has more than one "programmer," so there is some degree of defense in depth against this sort of thing in the form of peer review, change control, Q&A, and the like.

------------------
Saving the world, one clue at a time.

If a customer makes a "mistake" and books a nonrefundable ticket for the wrong date, then notices 48 hours later, does he get a free change? Every so often, perhaps, but in general not.

Funny how the US system -- and by that I mean both US Airways and actually the American legal system too! -- lets US Airways off the hook for its mistake but simultaneously manages to sock a $100+ change fee on the customer who makes a similar error but on a fall smaller scale.

Edited to fix typos.

[This message has been edited by bedelman (edited 04-11-2003).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by bedelman:

Edited to fix typos.

[This message has been edited by bedelman (edited 04-11-2003).]</font>

Ironic isn't it that one has to edit for typo's.

I go back to my statement above, we all got emails last fall explaning what they were going to do, so we all knew what we were going to get. So why do you think you deserve more now? A typo?

The most disgusting thought to me is that maybe Ben B. had it right. Maybe most of us want something for nothing? Maybe the term loyal customer does not mean the same thing to every one



[This message has been edited by longing4piedmont (edited 04-12-2003).]

dupe

[This message has been edited by longing4piedmont (edited 04-12-2003).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by deelmakur:
If you're Delta or Continental, you have to be thinking you couldn't do that kind of damage to a competitor's core custoomer base if you wanted. They should nominate Isom for Salesperson of the month.</font>

I have it all figured out! Leo had his people send it out and the retraction and they "spoofed" Dividend Miles' email header, just like low-life spammers! Then US couldn't issue a statement fingering DL for what they had done, because their programmer (and i use that term loosely) had made so many bonehead mistakes like GOM for all, back buttons that don't work on website, etc etc that no one would believe them when they said that this time it wasn't their programmer who screwed up but "sabatoogie" by the competition!

Only I can't figure out where the competition got the mailing list. Maybe I need to talk to some real conspiracy theorists.....

PS I got the "clarification" (I would call it a retraction) but haven't received my e-statement yet.

PPS - calling a "retraction" a "clarification" - wasn't it CO who called "massive program devaluation" an "enhancement"? On 2nd thought I think CO is the culprit behind this not DL!

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by longing4piedmont:
...we all got emails last fall explaning what they were going to do, so we all knew what we were going to get. So why do you think you deserve more now? </font>


Exactly.


Yes, someone goofed. Perhaps there is a head rolling at CCY? Yes, it's a blunder. No argument there.

But I'll ask again, does ANYONE think that because they flew 101,000 miles in 2002 that they should get Chairman's Preferred status through Feb. of 2005! Please be realistic folks. And again, thanks to US for the gesture of adding my "over 100k" miles to my 2003 tier mile balance.

Hey GEO, these guys aren't working in a vacuum. American sold their top elites a another year for a couple of hundred bucks, thus elminating the need to fly the miles in order to requalify....and they are a lot bigger than USAir. In my case, I bought another year of AA Plat for 400 bucks. So when you make what is ordinarily a cogent remark about what we should expect, in actual fact, the email was believable. I have 50,000 miles already this year, and it isn't even May. I can make US1 with my eyes closed. It's not my issue. My thoughts here have to do with the stupidity, firstly of not checking email content, then handling it so tersely, without taking time to analyze the fact that it had been super targeted to the hard core of the customer base. We are in an age of entitlement. No sense in trying to be logical in Wonderland. Today's elite ranks have been swelled by the inclusion (via various promotional gimmicks, etc.) of many more members than the marketing can accomodate, relative to the promises made. In a world where fat guys sue the candy company, some wiseass FF with a law degree might just try to take these guys downtown on this one.

Maybe I'll send Dave a thank you note for recognizing me as a top customer and extending my CP benefits through Feb. 2005. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif


I do wonder, however, assuming you unplug the frequent flier freaks that hang out in places like Flyer Talk (myself included), how many CP's actually noticed this screw up by the folks a Ft. Fumble in CCY???

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by geo1005:
M how many CP's actually noticed this screw up by the folks a Ft. Fumble in CCY???</font>

I didn't, and I had the bad news. I rarely read the statements.

It only takes one. By retracting it, they called attention to it. For a bunch that normally does negative things in the fine print on the website, this one was pretty foreground. That's what I meant about not doing it very intelligently.