I have been looking into protecting my USAir miles, given their current financial situation. After researching past threads and e-mailing AwardGuard's Customer Service, I seem to have found a discrepency regarding the extent of their coverage. Since others may be basing decisions on info gleaned through FT, I wanted to provide an update/clarification.
The issue is the level of coverage for accounts with a large number of points, and how many tickets can be purchased under AG's coverage. The FAQ is vague, discussing a $7,500 limit and "per year" but not really answering the question directly.
In thread 05223 - "AwardGuard?" - this question was asked:
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">I asked about the $7500 when I called to sign up. The limit is $7500 per year of redemptions.
For example, if I have all my 2 million miles in airline X, and airline X goes under in 2002, can I redeem tickets worth $7500 each year I continue my membership until my 2 million miles are exhausted, OR am I limited to a total of $7500 corresponding to the single year 2002 in which the airline X went under ?</font>
The answer came back:
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The first one. The miles would be good for years and year, subject to $7500 value per year for redeemed miles.</font>
In the same topic, Randy posted:
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Randy Petersen:
QUESTION: Is there a cap to either the number of accounts or number of miles?
ANSWER: No cap on the number of programs covered per membership to the extent of those listed in our materials (it doesn't matter if you belong to 2 or 12 programs) and we don't have an actual cap to the number of miles we can protect for you (some members have millions and with the Midway program, while their award structure was not mileage-based, some members did have covereage equal to about 900,000 miles, which why some 10 years later they are still enjoying their awards courtesy of AwardGuard). The restriction is based on payout per year. For instance, new members can't have claims equal to more than $7.500 in a given year PER program. The reality is that most people may redeem 2-4 rewards a year and most don't exceed that cost. The cost being the claim to supply substitution of awards via a purchased airline ticket.
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Perhaps the rules have changed, perhaps the wording is mis-leading, or perhaps I just read it wrong, but to me it certainly implies that there is a $7500 per year redemption limit, but any miles remaining are still in the bank for the next year, when the $7500 annual limit starts again. This continues until your miles are consumed. This limit is on the rate of redumption, not the total value.
However, I posed this question to Customer Service (twice, a few months apart) and got this answer:
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You are given one $7500 aggregate award liability for a program that ceases operation with no other program taking over the airline/program/miles. However, if more than one airline goes out of business during the same membership year you are given $7500 for both programs. The $7500 is given only once and is not replenished. You must keep your membership active in order to make claims against your banked miles. We would purchase tickets up to the amount of $7500 or until your miles were used up whichever comes first.
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To me, that means that even if I bank my million+ miles in USAir, as soon as I redeem 2 F tickets to Europe, at a price of $3,750 each - I am done. Not done for the year, done forever - the remaining million miles left in the bank have no value.
This means the answer given to the first question above is dead wrong - the answer is the exact opposite. Randy's aswer also seems very inconsistent with this.
I am assuming this is all due to rule/coverage changes based on the higher probability of failure. I just wanted to make everyone aware so we are making decisions on proper data.
[This message has been edited by CPRich (edited 11-05-2002).]