Krug1979

I live in Los Angeles but have decided to keep my SAS Eurobonus card since I am Swedish and go to Sweden every summer.

I always bring my Eurobonus card with me to the check-in counter but on a number of occasions in the last year they enter the letters incorrectly and no points are awarded automatically. It has happened with Asiana at LAX, Incheon and Manila, and it has happened with Air Canada at LAX and Vancouver. This is very annoying. I know I can wait for two weeks and then report it to SAS and they will investigate and reward me my points later but still.

When it happened to me last week it was on the flight that would have made me a Gold member again. Now I will have to wait an extra month or so for my Gold card to arrive. I asked SAS to make an exception and send me the card in time for a domestic United flight I am making in mid-October but no. They said they had nothing wrong and refused to apologize, "it is all Asiana's fault", they said. I understand what they are saying but isn't this also a general Star Alliance problem?

I fly even more frequently on OneWorld and it has never happened to me on a OneWorld flight.

sbm12

Often the number prints on the BP. Confirm that it is correct before leaving the counter. Otherwise there really isn't much to be done.

Krug1979

I always check the number and that is not the problem. They get the letters wrong.

At this last instance the Asiana check-in staff put EB/S123456789 on my ticket and she even went to her supervisor to confirm it was the correct way to put it. Since my Eurobonus number is EBS123456789 it looked correct to me. But on my return flight from Seoul I learned that the correct way is SK/EBS123456789.

I guess Star Alliance should educate their staff better or come up with a better system. OneWorld has figured it out.

sbm12

Well, that's all part of entering it, so they didn't actually get it right. And your check failed because even though you say it was right it wasn't. Now you know what to actually look for.

An Asiana contract agent in LAX who sees maybe one or two SK cards a year can probably be forgiven for not knowing the code, especially when the card includes letters at the front.

Krug1979

I said it was the same letter/number combination on my BP as on my Eurobonus card and it looked correct to me. As a customer I don't think I should need to do more than that. In fact I think bringing my Eurobonus card to the check-in counter should be enough. Everything else should just work, like it does when I fly with OneWorld airlines.

I don't blame her either, I blame Star Alliance for having a poor system. She should just have to swipe the card and that should be it.

yauee

small question, why wasn't the FFP number attach to the booking automatically and need to manually entered?

jexelot

Also this can be done on online check in

dvs7310

I have exactly the same problem with UA numbers since they are also alpha-numeric.

Unfortunately some airlines don't have a consistent web check in option (TK is one example), so you have to verify the number is in the reservation correctly every single time you get boarding passes printed. It's certainly annoying and I expect happens far left often with programs that are all numbers rather than a combination.

Kiwi Flyer

Not necessarily. Some airline codes are not obvious and I've had check in agents type OS for OZ for example. Also numberic FF numbers that print a leading zero on the card sometimes cause problems.