I booked a flight in July for Japan in Business Class. On August 8, for some reason, my account was closed. Although that is roughly the time that I went into my account online and updated my address and whatnot.

At no time did anyone let me know when I checked in that my account was cancelled. So now I am back and was not able to find my miles online. The customer service center said that I need to set up a new account and request that my miles be credited to that account.

But the website says that I cannot request miles for flights taken prior to enrollment.

So am I out of luck? I figure it would be quite a waste to piss away 17,000 miles, but I am not sure if going online to request credit is going to help me.

Any ideas on how to get my miles from the "best suited for bankruptcy" crowd?

Now I know why I have always flown Delta and Northwest for my business trips.