ShareAAMiles Frustration.....
Jun 15, 2008, 9:09 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Apr 2007
Posts: 6
ShareAAMiles Frustration.....
Hi all,
Just wanted to post a question concerning other person's experiences with the ShareAAMiles option.....On June 12, I was able to secure two U award tickets from DFW-HKG on AA/Cathay (which I've been trying to do for three weeks straight!) So, I placed them on hold because I needed to transfer about 20k miles from my account to my wife's account to get her ticket as well. The agent then suggested that I do the following cost effective option. Gift the maximum 15k miles via ShareAA and then purchase an additional 5k miles via the giftAA option. Which was around 360 dollars as opposed to the 500 dollars to just buy 20k miles via giftAA.
So, I went ahead via the website and requested the two transactions. I received the confirmation emails June 12 saying the transaction requests were received and would take up to 72 hours and we would receive confirmation email once they were completed.
So.....surprisingly, we get an email for the GiftAA miles one day after saying the transaction is completed and the miles have been posted. We checked my wife's account and they were showing up. The next day, we get another email saying the ShareAA miles transaction is complete. Great! I received the email via mobile phone so I didn't log in to check the miles but, I went ahead and called the AA Plat desk to book our reservations (The reservations have a 5 day hold until June17)
So, the agent on the phone proceeds with the reservation and I get my ticket completed. She then says, "Oh wait, your wife doesn't have enough miles in her account to complete the reservation." What?!? She then told me that I would have to transfer miles which would take longer then the remaining time on the reservation hold which meant I would lose my wife's reservation.
So, I explain to her that I already had requested the transactions and that I had received the confirmations for both completions, how could we have hte miles from 1 transaction but, not the other. I even read to her the email (which I'l post below) and specifically the line that said both accounts have been updated to reflect the account balance. The only thing she said over and over is it takes 72 hours to complete this transaction. Fine, I told her I understood that was written when the transaction was requested but, we got a confirmation email! How does that work? Does that make sense? I must confess I was getting frustrated at this point because she never seemed interested in listening to what I had to say or even to consider that information communicated to us didn't make sense. So she just says well, sir, I can't do anything about it so here's the booking code for your wife's reservation, your's has been completed, and I can transfer you to the AAdvanatage services desk. So, realizing I wasn't going to get anywhere now, I agreed and had her transfer me over. Same story over there, the same 72 hour window is what is written, yet I asked her when I recieved an email confirming, then what does that mean? In a nutshell, the agent said, "Well, I don't have control over those emails, I don't see them, all I see is that you have requested the transaction and it hasn't shown up yet and it takes 72 hours." I even supplied a transaction ID and if I do a chekc on the website, the status for both transactions is marked completed! So, I even asked her logically, "If one gets two emails, both requesting similar transactions, how can the results be different?" Again 72 hours...
So, while there was alot more going on that phone call because I was really frustrated at that point and there's no point to going there, I came to the conlusion that literally, there wasn't a thing that I could do to get answers other then to wait. At the end, she said wait until today (June 15) and the miles would post.
I check today, and what a surprise, the miles have not shown up. It's been 72 hours (We requested the transaction 5:00pm June 12) so now I guess I will wait until tomorrow morning to call.
But, I am getting really worried now that my wife's reservation will only be held until Tuesday and I just have no sense from the AA Plat desk that they are willing to help out if things go awry. I know how hard it is to secure tickets from US->HKG for non MPO's so I felt really lucky finding the tickets on the dates that we even wanted. Now, we're in a sticky situation where we could lose one of the award seats which means of course, we'll have to give them both back.
I just don't understand how the following email could not be trusted and relied upon:
Dear XXXX,
Thank you for using the shareAAmiles program. Your transfer of AAdvantage miles has been successfully completed to the following recipient, as summarized below:
Transaction Number: XXXXX
Recipient Name: XXXX
Recipient AAdvantage Number: XXXX
Miles Shared: 15,000
Cost of Miles: $150.00
Total Tax: $0.00
Processing Fee: $30.00
Total (billed to your credit card)*: $180.00 USD
Your AAdvantage account balance and the account balance(s) of your recipients have been updated to reflect your shareAAmiles transaction.
To check the status of your transaction, please visit https://buy.points.com/AAdvantage-se...dex_search.jsp and click on the Transaction Status link on the menu.
Sincerely,
American Airlines AAdvantage Customer Service
The email says everything's done, the website says everything is done, yet the customer service desk says they aren't there and there aren't any efforts to track down what is going on...... What, if any leverage do I have ? It just seems AA is going down the tank faster then I could even fathom and the service is frustrating.
Has anyone ever had anything happen like this, where they received confirmation on a transaction, yet it is no where to be found? Or even have any suggestions on what to do? I'm waiting to tomorrow with the hope that things will sort out but, this is just so frustrating.
Certainly, I can take business somewhere else but, given the amount of miles I've got on AA and the fact that DFW is their superhub, it'll be a challenge switching....
Anyways, not trying just to vent , rather, I wanted to see if any of the more experienced flyers here might have some suggestions or share past experiences that might help....
Just wanted to post a question concerning other person's experiences with the ShareAAMiles option.....On June 12, I was able to secure two U award tickets from DFW-HKG on AA/Cathay (which I've been trying to do for three weeks straight!) So, I placed them on hold because I needed to transfer about 20k miles from my account to my wife's account to get her ticket as well. The agent then suggested that I do the following cost effective option. Gift the maximum 15k miles via ShareAA and then purchase an additional 5k miles via the giftAA option. Which was around 360 dollars as opposed to the 500 dollars to just buy 20k miles via giftAA.
So, I went ahead via the website and requested the two transactions. I received the confirmation emails June 12 saying the transaction requests were received and would take up to 72 hours and we would receive confirmation email once they were completed.
So.....surprisingly, we get an email for the GiftAA miles one day after saying the transaction is completed and the miles have been posted. We checked my wife's account and they were showing up. The next day, we get another email saying the ShareAA miles transaction is complete. Great! I received the email via mobile phone so I didn't log in to check the miles but, I went ahead and called the AA Plat desk to book our reservations (The reservations have a 5 day hold until June17)
So, the agent on the phone proceeds with the reservation and I get my ticket completed. She then says, "Oh wait, your wife doesn't have enough miles in her account to complete the reservation." What?!? She then told me that I would have to transfer miles which would take longer then the remaining time on the reservation hold which meant I would lose my wife's reservation.
So, I explain to her that I already had requested the transactions and that I had received the confirmations for both completions, how could we have hte miles from 1 transaction but, not the other. I even read to her the email (which I'l post below) and specifically the line that said both accounts have been updated to reflect the account balance. The only thing she said over and over is it takes 72 hours to complete this transaction. Fine, I told her I understood that was written when the transaction was requested but, we got a confirmation email! How does that work? Does that make sense? I must confess I was getting frustrated at this point because she never seemed interested in listening to what I had to say or even to consider that information communicated to us didn't make sense. So she just says well, sir, I can't do anything about it so here's the booking code for your wife's reservation, your's has been completed, and I can transfer you to the AAdvanatage services desk. So, realizing I wasn't going to get anywhere now, I agreed and had her transfer me over. Same story over there, the same 72 hour window is what is written, yet I asked her when I recieved an email confirming, then what does that mean? In a nutshell, the agent said, "Well, I don't have control over those emails, I don't see them, all I see is that you have requested the transaction and it hasn't shown up yet and it takes 72 hours." I even supplied a transaction ID and if I do a chekc on the website, the status for both transactions is marked completed! So, I even asked her logically, "If one gets two emails, both requesting similar transactions, how can the results be different?" Again 72 hours...
So, while there was alot more going on that phone call because I was really frustrated at that point and there's no point to going there, I came to the conlusion that literally, there wasn't a thing that I could do to get answers other then to wait. At the end, she said wait until today (June 15) and the miles would post.
I check today, and what a surprise, the miles have not shown up. It's been 72 hours (We requested the transaction 5:00pm June 12) so now I guess I will wait until tomorrow morning to call.
But, I am getting really worried now that my wife's reservation will only be held until Tuesday and I just have no sense from the AA Plat desk that they are willing to help out if things go awry. I know how hard it is to secure tickets from US->HKG for non MPO's so I felt really lucky finding the tickets on the dates that we even wanted. Now, we're in a sticky situation where we could lose one of the award seats which means of course, we'll have to give them both back.
I just don't understand how the following email could not be trusted and relied upon:
Dear XXXX,
Thank you for using the shareAAmiles program. Your transfer of AAdvantage miles has been successfully completed to the following recipient, as summarized below:
Transaction Number: XXXXX
Recipient Name: XXXX
Recipient AAdvantage Number: XXXX
Miles Shared: 15,000
Cost of Miles: $150.00
Total Tax: $0.00
Processing Fee: $30.00
Total (billed to your credit card)*: $180.00 USD
Your AAdvantage account balance and the account balance(s) of your recipients have been updated to reflect your shareAAmiles transaction.
To check the status of your transaction, please visit https://buy.points.com/AAdvantage-se...dex_search.jsp and click on the Transaction Status link on the menu.
Sincerely,
American Airlines AAdvantage Customer Service
The email says everything's done, the website says everything is done, yet the customer service desk says they aren't there and there aren't any efforts to track down what is going on...... What, if any leverage do I have ? It just seems AA is going down the tank faster then I could even fathom and the service is frustrating.
Has anyone ever had anything happen like this, where they received confirmation on a transaction, yet it is no where to be found? Or even have any suggestions on what to do? I'm waiting to tomorrow with the hope that things will sort out but, this is just so frustrating.
Certainly, I can take business somewhere else but, given the amount of miles I've got on AA and the fact that DFW is their superhub, it'll be a challenge switching....
Anyways, not trying just to vent , rather, I wanted to see if any of the more experienced flyers here might have some suggestions or share past experiences that might help....
Jun 15, 2008, 10:10 pm
#2
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: May 2004
Location: DFW/DAL
Programs: AA Lifetime PLT, AS MVPG, HH Diamond, NCL Platinum Plus, MSC Diamond
Posts: 21,422
I don't know the solution, but I wouldn't spend 15000 miles to save $140.
Jun 16, 2008, 6:16 am
#3
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: SJC/VCE
Programs: AA PLT (2.9+ MM), HH GLD, Hyatt Diamond, SPG PLT
Posts: 10,161
I"m not sure I'm following everything. IAlso, the AA site was closed for "maintenance" over the weekend (only a couple of hours) and the monthly updates were done at the same time. I suspect that may have slowed down the posting process. Check your account today and see is they have posted. If not, then ask for the hold period on the award to be extended.
Jun 25, 2008, 2:32 pm
#4
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 2
I have similar situation, I transfer the miles last night but my status show pending then I bough the miles right after I transfer. This morning I check the buy miles status alrady compelted but not the pending status one(tranfer mile) does anyone have any idea ? They keep saying 72 hours timeline, but my reservation ending in 72 hours timeline as well. I email points.com they said it is AA own, I called AA, they said it is own by points.com
Jun 25, 2008, 2:45 pm
#5
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: East Coast
Programs: UA Lifetime Gold, AA Lifetime Platinum, Delta PM, Marriott Gold, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 1,522
A sucka is born every minute. Now I see why AA creates such programs. People will do anything to save a buck even when it does not make sense!
@:-)@:-)
@:-)@:-)