Signing up for the ConnectMiles card offered a free "acompaņante" ticket. I got mine via email several weeks after receiving the card. The certificate had to be redeemed before Dec 31, valid for travel through most of 2016. And, you can only redeem it at a Copa Airlines sales office in Panama, using a print out of the email.

Unfortunately, I received the email in mid-Dec just one day before leaving for the rest of the year. No chance to invent a trip for me and my wife then get to a ticket office to seal the deal. So, we called Copa, and asked if we could do such a thing at the Copa ticket counter in the airport, where we'd be the next day. The phone agent said yes.

Well, the Copa counter agents the next day refused to touch it, including lengthy calls to superiors, so that got wadded up and tossed in the trash. Too bad, as it was probably the most generous benefit of signing up for the card. Observing the counter agent, I wondered if they didn't know how to deal with it, or they were obeying the simple rules posted at the bottom about it only being redeemable at a sales office. I wonder if I should have photoshopped that clause out of the printed email.