AKCuisine

I logged onto my account today with the unfortunate task of needing to cancel two one-way international partner award tickets for a trip I'd booked for August.

Imagine my surprise after I clicked "cancel," see the ticket fee to be refunded listed correctly, but then notice the miles to be redeposited listed as a big fat 0 - as in zero, zip, zilch. I immediately backed out of each booking without finalizing the cancellation - and zoomed over here to ask if anyone else has encountered this problem recently.

It was the same glitch on a QF F ticket (70K miles) and an EK F ticket (100K miles). I've cancelled many international tickets in the past, but I have always seen the correct number of miles listed to be redeposited in my account. I'm not about to accidentally risk losing a total of 170,000 miles if the online web process is buggy.

Anyone else had this occur with mileage ticket cancellations?

VibeGuy

Yes, and I sent in a bug report on the website, and replied to the email with a screenshot.

What I got back was a message that the miles had credited correctly, which was absolutely not what I was reporting.

Good luck getting anyone to pay attention.

AKCuisine

Let me see if I understand - you saw the "0 miles" to be refunded, but cancelled the ticket anyway? And Alaska said the miles were redeposited, but they actually were not returned?

If that's what happened, sheesh. And shame on them!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I've had pretty good luck getting Alaska's attention via their Social Care team on Twitter. They follow me, frequently interact, and also send DMs back and forth. Maybe I'll contact them - it's often faster than calling various phone agents who often don't know abou these types of issues.

My most recent glitch had to do with the "new and improved" email confirmations not importing correctly into TripIt when they're forwarded. The flights show up, but not the confirmation codes, seat assignments, or the ticket price ...

I was *very* frustrated after forwarding 8 separate multi-segment confirmation emails - and then discoverd I had to add *most* of the information by hand. It kind of defeats the purpose of sending the confirmations to the "[email protected]" email.

alphaeagle

I saw that too, figured it was a glitch due to a schedule change. Decided to wait to cancel and see if the issue was fixed later.

CDKing

Yea ive had it before. I called when i made my cancellation instead of risking an error. Wierd stuff happens on a schedule change.

Always good to watch miles closely. I noticed 90K missing one day and it turned out on the schedule change automatic acceptance the new times but pulled an extra 90K miles. They gave it back but still watch out on every schedule change.

AKCuisine

I don't think either my Qantas flight or the one on Emirates have had any schedule changes since they were booked earlier this year. I'm attributing the problem to the website refresh that went live shortly after the big Alaska rebranding occurred earlier this year. But I could be wrong.

Either way, I'm going to keep checking back and hold off on cancelling until I can verify that all of my precious points will be returned, not held hostage.

AKCuisine

Sounds like a good plan, CDKing. ^ ^ ^

alphaeagle

Just looked at a few other reservations. They all showed 0 miles due, including ones with no schedule changes and all AS metal awards.

bronco29

Happened to me too a few days ago. I called AS immediately after backing out of cancellations. Apparently this was a known issue (at least that's what the Rep told me). She assured me that the correct miles will be re-deposited. So I tried again online and sure enough the confirmation page did show the correct miles to be re-deposited and they were.

VibeGuy

Oh, the miles were automatically redeposited, my bug that got blown off is that it shows 0 coming back.

When I bug something, I hate it when the copypasta reply doesn't address the actual topic at hand. The bug isn't that miles don't return to the account, the bug is that the site says zero will be returned.

thegingninj

it's a glitch. you can cancel your tix, nothing to worry about.

AKCuisine

Thanks for the reassurances and for sharing your personal experiences everyone!

nineworldseries

This appears to be fixed now, at least for me.