Originally Posted by
Fraser
I'm too new to the game (and too smart
) to have lost any miles worth mentioning in the thread.
My father lost more DL miles than I care to imagine when for two years in the mid 1990s he was flying LGW-ATL-TYS every three weeks in Business Class. He just never got round to using the miles and they expired unused
I've trotted this story out before but what the hell...The
absolute worst, and one of the reasons why, even as not very regular traveller myself, I keep an eye on my FFPs is that for eight years my father was working regularly in Southern California. My brother, mother and I would fly out to see him in BA Club World anywhere from four to seven times per year. To credit miles to BA Executive Club you need to be 18yrs old but you could set up a Household account and anyone, any age could contribute. However my father never realised this so my brother and I lost equivalent to 100+ J trips worth of miles in the process. Plus some BA Gold wallet candy, not that I had a wallet at the age of 7 but....
that stinks and I feel bad for you guys. BUT to counter it--if this somehow makes you feel better because I know a small group of people who got back at the system and BA was the victim!
Some friends of friends all temporaily changed their addresses to merge into a family account with BA, as it only really matters that everyone appears on paper to reside under the same roof. In the states, mail can be more easily rerouted and it's no offense to put your name onto an address, and you can change it back later. (often times, a good thing for college students too) Anyway, it's reported they all GOT the BA miles by doing the Jaguar promo years ago. You got 10k for test driving a certain new car, but only one of them really ever did it. The salesman gave a cert that was signed but not filled in! Woo hoo! A visit to Kinko's copies and a little black ink and some tweaking here and there, plus some added info later on, made it all come together for these guys. Then, the merge enabled the gang to have enough for a couple of tickets. The award flyers gave something of value to those who contributed to their use of the award miles and all was well with the world. I am sure, however, just telling of this will get me some flack so I am not going to admit to anything except to say it's probably still possible and will prevent a loss of otherwise useless small sums of BA miles...
MM
at the end of it, they all changed their addresses back to normal and undid the names in the family account on paper with the airline thru the use of more of its own forms and procedures, seeing as how THAT is pretty much all that matters to airlines these days anyway--which is precisely why this stuff worked.