US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - US won't let me save them money

I'm a very Internet-based kinda guy and I'd love to help them avoid the use of their CWA phone people because I'd like to see the company make money, remain in business and keep being nice to me. I had a last minute e-saver trip this weekend.

First, I went on-line to see if I could upgrade. As is the case 99% of the time, the system said I had no upcoming flights eligible for upgrade. I booked it on-line, so it wasn't because of that problem. I honestly have no idea why it almost never works for me, but it doesn't. I checked (through a third party, because US doesn't make this available through them) and there were seats in the upgrade bucket open.

So, I call and listed to the same stupid hold stuff until I get an agent and explain my desire to upgrade. Clickety-click, no problem sir, I've got you both upgraded on both flights. Thank you for doing business with us. Very helpful, very nice, but why do I have to do this?

Second, I say, I could use some bonus miles, I'll still do web-checkin even though I don't need a good place in line. Of course, it doesn't work. The error message implies that I can't do it because my companion is being upgraded since she's with me, although as a SP, she qualified on her own. Maybe the rez agent just did it on my record -- I dunno.

Third, I show up at the airport and decide I'll take the very few miles to check-in via the kiosk. Can you guess if it would work? Ding, ding, ding -- give the man a cigar. It really is pitiful.

Strangely enough, the kiosk worked fine on the way home. Weird.

I recieved four dividend miles cards this year: SP, GP, SP * Silver, GP * Gold. The original SP card, makes sense they had to get the cards out near the end of February. I earned GP near the end of March on a GP challenge, and the e-mail said it would take about 4 weeks for the new card to arrive, but had full Gold privileges in the meantime. Why on earth would they not wait to just send me a GP * Gold card for May 4, expecially considering it wasn't until the 1st week in April that they finally recoginized that I fulfilled the terms of the challenge. I can wait a couple more days.

I can see getting a SP * Silver card (arrived 5/7), they had to have the names to the printer by a certain date to make sure they were all printed and mailed on time and it was too late to make changes.

I recieved a GP * Gold card today (5/11) with an incorrect expiration date on it. All of the other cards, including the SP * Silver, had a date in MM/DD/YY format, this one appears to be YY/MM/DD (Europe uses DD/MM/YY) format so if someone reads the date as any of the two standard formats it looks like the card expires on May 2, 2028, or February 5, 2028. If they catch it, or I call and let them know it will be a fifth card.

There should be no reason I got four cards this year with them joining *. As a printer, I can say three is plausible, due to scheduling issues and when they needed to have the address list to the printer. They should have had a cut off date for people that earned the next level up to not replace their cards with a regular card but wait and just replace it once with a * card. This same date should have been the cut off at the printers to make changes to any of the other levels lists. This would have elimintated them having to pay to create atleast one if not two additional cards for me.

I thought that sending out the *Alliance cards was a waste of $ - was this required by the Alliance rules?

I thought that sending out the *Alliance cards was a waste of $ - was this required by the Alliance rules?
Maybe they had to add data to the magnetic strip? Otherwise, just to add the *A logo, it seems a tad silly

Especially for Silvers. I mean maybe 1% of all SP members will ever even use their privilege in their lifetime as * silver. A priority wait list on sold out flights? I mean there really is nothing to even recognize, so why is * silver such a big deal? And to print out tons of new cards just for that?

I agree with you about the cards and logo, but I disagree about the usefulness of *Silver. Every time I have travelled around Asia it has come in very handy. I once stood by onto a Thai flight 6 hours early, and although 30 people were in the standby line and I checked in nearly last among them, they called me 1st and only 2 of us made the flight (which was only 60% full on a 777 -- I think being ontime meant more to them than accomodating non * standbys). That being said, I never presented my card and they only knew the info because of my United # in the reservation.

If the sytems are working, the card itself should be unnecessary. That being said, my *Silver card still has not arrived. But if you are ever the last one to come off a waitlist and make a flight, that is the greatest single benefit of elite status anywhere.

So I went through a dummy booking on the US website for a BOS-PHL-BOS GoFare trip in a couple of weeks time, and it wanted to issue me with a paper ticket - no option for an e-ticket! What's that all about?

And a paper ticket is no good to me on this timescale 'cos it's unlikely to reach me in the UK that quickly.

So the best I can hope for is to book by phone and content myself with double miles.