Why two Mileage Balance numbers on the View My Miles page?

 
Old Feb 9, 2004, 8:19 am
  #1  
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Why two Mileage Balance numbers on the View My Miles page?

This is something that has perplexed me for years now, and I figured I would finally post it here for some thoughts.

The number of miles on my Mileage Summary is different from that on my Ending Balance, by about 4K. This means I have more miles available for awards than I appear to have earned. Can anyone explain this anomoly?

Just to be clear, on the View My Miles page, down the left column, there is a set of numbers which talleys our Mileage Summary: all miles earned to date, YTD Elite Qualifying Miles, etc. There is a line that reads: Miles with Expiration Deferred Through 1/09/07. This is where the higher number first appears, and once again under the final category: Total Available Award Mileage.

Yet when I look at the right hand side of the page, under View My Miles, Starting Balance and Ending Balance, I see the lower mileage number.

Now I realize being a long time AA member [since 1989] means I have earned miles back when they used to expire. And that a certain number of those miles were rolled over to expire at a later date. But I have also now made several award withdrawals, so would have assumed any of these "old, expiring" miles would have been removed, and all my current miles banked would have come from travel and credit card charges made in the past couple of years, when there was no expiry.

So, can anyone explain why the two different balances? I am sure everyone else has the same discrepancy on their account statement pages.
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Old Feb 9, 2004, 8:30 am
  #2  
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It's an interesting question. I also joined in '89, yet I do not appear to have the discrepancy. My summary reads as follows (you will note that my "ending balance" matches my "miles with expiration deferred" and "total available award mileage"):

Mileage Summary Summary Date: Feb 2004

Program to Date Miles: 2,392,283

YTD Elite Qualifying Points: 22,460

YTD Elite Qualifying Miles: 19,445

YTD Gold / Platinum Qualifying Segments: 7

Miles Towards Gold / Platinum / Executive Platinum Upgrades: 59,058

Miles with Expiration Deferred Through 2/06/07: 587,283

Upgrade Account Balance: 11

Total Available Award Mileage + 587,283

+ Flights, awards, and other eligible transactions processed within the last two weeks may not be reflected.

STARTING BALANCE 560,591
01/29/04 TRIPLE MILE PROMOTION 0 5,222 5,222
01/29/04 AA.COM BOOKING BONUS 0 500 500
01/29/04 AMERICAN AIRLINES 222 Y LAX BOS 2,611 2,611 5,222
01/28/04 AA.COM BOOKING BONUS 0 500 500
01/28/04 AMERICAN AIRLINES 29 Y JFK LAX 2,475 2,475 4,950
01/27/04 AA.COM BOOKING BONUS 0 500 500
01/27/04 AMERICAN AIRLINES 144 Y LAX IAD 2,288 2,288 4,576
01/27/04 AMERICAN AIRLINES 25 Y BOS LAX 2,611 2,611 5,222
TOTAL MILES POSTED 9,985 16,707 26,692
ENDING BALANCE 587,283

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Old Feb 9, 2004, 8:55 am
  #3  
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I've had the same thing for a few years now. The discrepancy has held steady at 3,265 miles, which is one BOS-LHR flight - a route I have flown often, so it seems like one flight got counted in one total but not the other. I e-mailed aa.com tech support about it twice but didn't hear back.
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Old Feb 9, 2004, 11:53 am
  #4  
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I have this problem too. Mine was the result of a DCA-DFW flight about 5 years ago. If I remember correctly, I was standby on the flight and for some reason when I was cleared for it, my AA # did not get into my record. I followed up after the flight to get the miles, but for some reason it never appeared as a line item, but was included in the mileage summary of available miles.
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Old Feb 9, 2004, 12:25 pm
  #5  
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Chicago, IL, USA
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I have the same issue, and I know exactly from whence it came.

In the mid 90's I made several trips to South Africa, either JFK-JBG or MIA-CPT. This was a codeshare on SAA. At some point SAA mis-coded the flight so my milage was credited wrong.

After several letters and phone calls this was the final result.

My current ending balance is 85922
My total available award milage is 93980

The difference of 8058 is exactly the milage of one of these routes.

I got tired of fighting for the correction several years ago.
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Old Feb 9, 2004, 1:24 pm
  #6  
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Thanks for sharing your experiences in this regard. However, I cannot recall having a missing flight(s) which might have accounted for such a discrepancy. I have hesitated calling AA about this for years now, lest they decide to deduct the extra miles. Maybe it's time...or just let sleeping dogs lay.
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Old Feb 9, 2004, 7:40 pm
  #7  
 
Join Date: Sep 1999
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I have a similar discrepancy in my account. It might have been a flight from Europe which got changed due to irregular ops. When I returned, I requested the difference in miles from my original itinerary (LHR-MIA, MIA-EWR), in addition to the ones I received for the flight I had been changed to (LHR-EWR). After I noticed the discrepancy, I called AA. They won't fix it, but they assured me that the actual total is the higher one.
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