tinkerbell78

So frustrated!!!!
We have a bunch of OZ miles: before the pandemic we transferred points to OZ for *A business class redemptions from LAX to SCL. Our dates of travel were March 2020 - naturally our flights were cancelled. We accumulated even more miles after a post-pandemic trip to ICN as well.
Now - I want to burn them and even though its a silly redemption we are going to MEX and its an easy *A redemption on UA. I checked our dates on UA and PLENTY of saver awards, multiple saver award flights for the dates we want to travel (November) and multiple days in the weeks before & after we want to fly.
My husband calls the dreaded US OZ number today: 1st agent tells him they dont book award flights. 2nd agent says no availability. 3rd agent finds availability on undesired days only in economy AND more than the 55k miles (per OZ partner award redemption chart) for each booking.
I just dont understand why they cant be helpful AT.ALL. How can it be that noone working there knows the actual guidelines of what is offered on their website?

Additionally, my husband's OZ account is locked & the 3rd agent didnt know how to unlock it (again - wth?!?), so we cant try to book on the OZ korean site, which sometimes works a smidge better.
I really dont want to lose the miles - but the time required to use their program with suboptimal results is a commitment that i dont think we can continue to make. Any suggestions?

JFSV

You may want to email to them to reset the locked account. They used to work quite well with their US-based email address for Asiana club members for this type of queries.

tinkerbell78

thanks - ill try that. i filled out the form for ID verification to re-set the account and it failed (no incorrect information but have this happen for years - idk why) and then got a message that i have to fax them an ID...so email is worth a try to avoid that!

tinkerbell78

emailed them - thanks for the suggestion - got an email response today that says they no longer re-set accounts via email - so back to nothing -
anyone have any ideas on what to do w 200k OZ miles? cant redeem them for nothing!

ttuna3

I had to call the US office and then they got back to Korea and got things straightened out, It took them until the next day in the US but once they got things fixed in Korea, the US team called and got me back on line again.

tinkerbell78

that might work for the locked account issue, but for the award booking they werent even helpful enough to get that far. i had hoped that their CS after the pandemic would be better (? idk why!) i have booked partner award tickets successfully with OZ one time in 2019, but never since then and i have tried for multiple trips / partners / etc...i suppose once the merger with Korean is finished then it will be easier, their awards program is easier to navigate

ttuna3

It sounds like a locked account issue to me. My last mess started as a password issue and then my account locked up. Once they got the lock off, things were back to normal. Th US team is generally pretty good, but when things get messed up they need to get Korea to fix things there. My issues last time started at GIG so the "normal" resets didn't work and then I got locked out. OZ IT at times has let's say "issues", but when somebody can get to the Korean helpdesk they can almost always get it fixed.

tinkerbell78

locked account shouldnt determine the availability of partner awards tho - when i called the res center in LA, they can search for partner award & see the miles in my account.
the locked account is only an issue for me using the website