This story reminds me of one of my friends who asked if airlines give retroactive mileage credit and I replied some do, some don't. I thought he had meant he'd taken a flight a within last 90 days and then realized he should've signed up for FF program. But no, he meant he took a flight over 7 YEARS ago and wanted back credit for that journey!

To the average non FF, the fine points of the various programs are just not that important. If they're aren't keenly interested as we all are here, it's like try to teach a foreign language. You can try and fight the good fight, but I usually find the longer the elapsed time, the less willing airlines/FF programs are to help.