Cathay Rip Off
 

Just found out today that sometime in the last year, Cathay changed their mileage program so that the name on the flight reservation, mileage program and passport need to be identical to get points. I've probably lost around 30,000 points through what appears to be a draconian attempt by Cathay to rip off their customers. I see this change as malicious in intent for 2 reasons:

1. There was no specific email sent warning users of the change. It appears in the mileage statement between the point chart and the advertising crap, but who has time to actually read their monthly statements?
2. Every time I checked in over the last year, I asked the check in staff whether my mileage had been entered and they have said yes. No warning about the name discrepancy even though it should be obvious when they checked my mileage.

I'm livid! I fly about 100,000 miles a year for business and now every possible mile will be on Star Alliance. Cathay sucks!

Did you contact MPC? I have found them to be very accommodating about crediting the miles, if you can prove beyond reasonable doubt that it was you who flown the flights.

They have accepted these discrepancies (names have been changed):

Membership name: Paul Steven Smith
Tickets: Paul Smith, P. M. Smith, Paul S. Smith

In these cases, upon the presentation of boarding passes they have issued the miles, though sometimes it took a while. To this day VN ticket agents like to only put your initials on the ticket, especially in smaller cities where they hand write tickets.

I do not see the intent on CX part to "steal" miles from its customers. Agents at check in are just telling you that your FF details have been entered. They have no authority over the crediting of mileage whatsoever. I don't think they normally pull up your MPO profile to cross check, and even so, especially with contracted staff at out ports, they may very well not be aware that this discrepancy is a problem. It’s simply not their job.

Trust me, agents don't have the time to double check your name for you, it's your responsibility. I don't know how long airlines have been saying that the name on your ticket must match your passport. They could technically deny you boarding and require you to purchase a new ticket.

I would suggest that you (politely) write an email to MPO about the miles you didn’t get and I’m sure they will do everything in their power so that you will get the miles that are due to you.

In case you have already decided that “Cathay sucks” because of this (which is 99% your fault), then well, enjoy your flights with United. Nobody wants such an unreasonable customer.

Actually it is really funny the OP posted this. I received an email from MPO and they pointed this name matching issue and warned members regatding this.

Yep, I got it today too. Let's post it here for reference

All my mileage programmes only have my first and last names. I do not include my middle names, and it has not posed a problem.

When they say that your reservation has to match your passport , they mean your SURNAME.

ie John Chan Wai Sing is your full name.
Chan Wai Sing John is your passport name and your membership name.

Your ticket reservations can be : CHAN / WAISING JOHN
or CHAN / WS JOHN

If you joined under CHAN / JOHN and your ticket reads as CHAN / J or CHAN / JOHN, your miles will get credited. But if you book your tickets suddenly as CHAN / WS, you won't get credit because the initials do not match to the CX database.

All you have to do is send in all your boarding passes, tickets and copy of your passport and explain that you have booked as the way it was but problems arose.. I am sure Asiamiles will help you get the credit you deserve.

Good luck.

That has not been my experience. My MPC membership name is my first name in full, 2 middle initials, and my family name. My passport has all 4 in full. Because this is too long, my tickets were always booked with 3 initials and then my family name. Until recently, CX never had a problem with this. Recently, since the change in their system, there has been a problem. This has nothing to do with the name on my passport; it is because my MPC account has my first name in full, but my tickets have that name as an initial. Once my TA started to book my tickets with my name shown exactly as on my MPC account, the problems stopped. The problem was not a mismatch in my surname, but in the format of my first name.

Folks with surnames such as O'XXXXXXXX could have problems.

Tix can't be written with the " ' " and this has caused problems in the past.

Anyone out ther with such a name has probably seen multiple credit card solicitation sent to them with a rull range of variations on their name

The other thing that really screws up mileage credit is when you have a suffix at the end of your name like me U.FF.A Jr. This has caused tons of mileage crediting problems on CX and UA in the past especialy with partner airlines. :mad:
-UFFA