I've had great success with the portal, even if the miles sometimes take a while to post. Fwiw, I always clear cookies from the site I am about to shop from before even logging on to the portal, only link out via the red "Shop Now" button and make sure the portal and the website I am shopping from are the only two tabs/windows I have open, whether in Firefox or IE.

Generally, I notice miles are posting to my shopping account faster than they were earlier in the year.

@ingridhughes what you are describing sounds like a miles deduction for returns. Btw, a belated welcome to FlyerTalk!