What % of miles don't post without Followup
#1
Original Poster
formerly known as Frugal Travel Guy


Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Greenville, SC
Programs: UA Gold, HH Gold, SPG Gold, Marriott Silver, Hyatt Platinum
Posts: 1,925
What % of miles don't post without Followup
Maybe I'm just on a bad streak, but the percentage of times, I have to follow up, seems to be getting higher. With flight miles, flight bonuses, credit card miles and bonuses, signup bonuses, hotel points, shopping portals etc, how are you all doing??? Any one vendor that seems particularly good or bad??
My own experience appears to be a third of the time I have to followup to get my miles. It just doesn't seem it should be all that complicated
My own experience appears to be a third of the time I have to followup to get my miles. It just doesn't seem it should be all that complicated
#2


Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: LHR/ATL
Programs: EY Gold, AS MVPG, BAEC Gold, DL PM
Posts: 858
Crediting BIS miles taken on international Skyteam partners to DL's Skymiles program is a PITA!
Even NWA aren't really prompt in posting flight miles.
Talking about credit cards, AMEX's bonus points/miles post after everyone's forgotten that the promo even existed! Citi is much better in this regard.
Even NWA aren't really prompt in posting flight miles.
Talking about credit cards, AMEX's bonus points/miles post after everyone's forgotten that the promo even existed! Citi is much better in this regard.
#3


Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 13
Emirates sucks in that category. Whenever they change alliance partners, they put the onus on the customer to make sure they have the right FF number. I travelled emirates and had given them both my United and Delta FFs. They took the Delta FF and now claiming they would take any junk in there and i need to make sure. What a Pity..May be next time i should try really nasty to see whether they take that.
#5
FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: BOS, MHT
Programs: AA ltg, B6, DL, UA, AS, SPG/Marriott Plt, HH, Hyatt
Posts: 10,062
United shopping portal. Horrible. Their significantly delayed and messed up postings have cost me the ability to properly plan travel when depending on those miles to book way in advance, even after giving THEM 3x the amount of time suggested to get the postings.
I have had to chase miles at least 15 times in the past year alone. Granted, I do manage some of the accounts from family members, but you can also note that partner mileage from say, US air to post into UA has also often involved letter writing and photocopying tickets, etc. It's actually something I EXEPCT to happen now, so I keep detailed files of every transaction I do until I see every mile come through on any given anything!
I would have to say for me, it's got to be 7/10 or 70-75% rate of having to fight for my right to party.
oh well, it must be why I am a good 'whatever I am at work that these skills obviously helped me get the job I'm in now.'
MM
I have had to chase miles at least 15 times in the past year alone. Granted, I do manage some of the accounts from family members, but you can also note that partner mileage from say, US air to post into UA has also often involved letter writing and photocopying tickets, etc. It's actually something I EXEPCT to happen now, so I keep detailed files of every transaction I do until I see every mile come through on any given anything!
I would have to say for me, it's got to be 7/10 or 70-75% rate of having to fight for my right to party.
oh well, it must be why I am a good 'whatever I am at work that these skills obviously helped me get the job I'm in now.'
MM
#7
FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: BOS, MHT
Programs: AA ltg, B6, DL, UA, AS, SPG/Marriott Plt, HH, Hyatt
Posts: 10,062
I have never had a problem with the mall shopping, although I just did two promos that could yeild up to 16k in miles and I sure hope those dont get messed up or lost! I kept everything though so we shall see.
MM
AAs mall seems decent as well.
MMAAs mall seems decent as well.
#9




Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Atlntida, Canelones, Uruguay (MVD) and rarely GNV
Programs: AV LifeMiles, CM ConnectMiles, BA Exec Club. Former:ex-ASGold, ex-UA1K, ex-COPlat, ex-NWGold.
Posts: 2,672
It's pretty decent. Worse when flying on a partner of the program you're crediting. A few anecdotal datapoints:
1. LAN Airlines (oneworld). I started accumulating all my AA trips (which are only about 15% of my total flights) because I was also taking a LAN Argentina domestic flight in a cheap fare class that didn't count for AAdvantage. Figured since my AA account was empty/no-status I'd credit to LAN in 2006-07 to get some reward. AA is annoying just like DL in this way: there's no way online to put in a partner FF# - you always have to call, or else do it at check-in or gate. The one time I actually saw the LA# print on my AA BP is the only time the flight didn't get credited to LANPass.
So about 25% of my AA/oneworld flying or about 4% of my overall flying didn't credit.
2. Delta crediting to NW. Happens 100% of the time faster than NW itself, if I can get India to understand me when I call to give them my WorldPerks#.
3. UA - lost 867 miles on a DEN-BOS that became a DEN-ORD divert with a next-day ORD-BOS. By the time I realized I'd never gotten it, it was over a year old (I was less miles-obsessive in 2005). Never had UA miles fail to post except in this situation where I think they de-boarded everyone from DEN-BOS when they rebooked people instead of doing it the right way.
Overall I've been pretty lucky in getting flight miles to post about 95% or better, as long as I do my part of extra verification when flying partner metal. For example I'm flying to Munich on a UA-ticket, UA-fare, UA-codeshare/LH metal outbound with a LH return TATL leg. LH didn't have the UA MP# in their locator so I'm sure I would not have gotten miles automatically. I got the LH locator from UA, then used the customer service form on LH's site to request adding the MP#, then verified it showed up on checkmytrip.com after they entered it.
Partners whom you have to call, and irrops. That's pretty much the only problems. Getting the "home" airline's flights to post usually works 100%.
Hotel miles usually show up, but HHonors has messed up posting to LAN a couple of times.
National has messed up rental car miles to NW and to UA a couple of times. Maybe about 10% don't post, or post as base miles without promo coupon credits. Hertz is better in this area. No way I'm ever renting again from Thrifty/Dollar so I don't know about them.
NW Mall is slow and sometimes inaccurate. I use drugstore.com a lot and one of the annoyances with NWA Mall is that each line-item in the order posts separately, at a different time. So I might order well over $50 of stuff which might qualify for some NW promo, but it posts as $3 for a bottle of Tylenol, $2 for deodorant, etc., instead of the order amount. Then I have to call or email NW.
1. LAN Airlines (oneworld). I started accumulating all my AA trips (which are only about 15% of my total flights) because I was also taking a LAN Argentina domestic flight in a cheap fare class that didn't count for AAdvantage. Figured since my AA account was empty/no-status I'd credit to LAN in 2006-07 to get some reward. AA is annoying just like DL in this way: there's no way online to put in a partner FF# - you always have to call, or else do it at check-in or gate. The one time I actually saw the LA# print on my AA BP is the only time the flight didn't get credited to LANPass.
So about 25% of my AA/oneworld flying or about 4% of my overall flying didn't credit.
2. Delta crediting to NW. Happens 100% of the time faster than NW itself, if I can get India to understand me when I call to give them my WorldPerks#.
3. UA - lost 867 miles on a DEN-BOS that became a DEN-ORD divert with a next-day ORD-BOS. By the time I realized I'd never gotten it, it was over a year old (I was less miles-obsessive in 2005). Never had UA miles fail to post except in this situation where I think they de-boarded everyone from DEN-BOS when they rebooked people instead of doing it the right way.
Overall I've been pretty lucky in getting flight miles to post about 95% or better, as long as I do my part of extra verification when flying partner metal. For example I'm flying to Munich on a UA-ticket, UA-fare, UA-codeshare/LH metal outbound with a LH return TATL leg. LH didn't have the UA MP# in their locator so I'm sure I would not have gotten miles automatically. I got the LH locator from UA, then used the customer service form on LH's site to request adding the MP#, then verified it showed up on checkmytrip.com after they entered it.
Partners whom you have to call, and irrops. That's pretty much the only problems. Getting the "home" airline's flights to post usually works 100%.
Hotel miles usually show up, but HHonors has messed up posting to LAN a couple of times.
National has messed up rental car miles to NW and to UA a couple of times. Maybe about 10% don't post, or post as base miles without promo coupon credits. Hertz is better in this area. No way I'm ever renting again from Thrifty/Dollar so I don't know about them.
NW Mall is slow and sometimes inaccurate. I use drugstore.com a lot and one of the annoyances with NWA Mall is that each line-item in the order posts separately, at a different time. So I might order well over $50 of stuff which might qualify for some NW promo, but it posts as $3 for a bottle of Tylenol, $2 for deodorant, etc., instead of the order amount. Then I have to call or email NW.
Last edited by MarkXS; Feb 25, 2007 at 11:06 pm
#13
Join Date: May 2005
Location: montreal canada
Programs: AA lifetime gold, BA, AC, CX, AS, DL, AF(gold), IHG(plt), SPG(gold), HHONORS, .
Posts: 358
% of miles credited without need of a followup :
AA 100%.
LAN ( and LAN Argentina ) to AA 100%.
AC 70%.
HH 100%
SPG 100%
Priority Club 50%.
Michael
AA 100%.
LAN ( and LAN Argentina ) to AA 100%.
AC 70%.
HH 100%
SPG 100%
Priority Club 50%.
Michael
#14
FlyerTalk Evangelist

Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: BOS, MHT
Programs: AA ltg, B6, DL, UA, AS, SPG/Marriott Plt, HH, Hyatt
Posts: 10,062
hint hintfax em what you have, ask Air China to get you the ticket numbers, and include copies of everything else you have--itinerary, passport pages with stamps (showing you were in fact THERE), and whatever you got.
#15
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 107
if the airlines did their jobs right and posted the miles like it should, we wouldn't have to resort to "graphic enhancement" and drinking
just wanted to send out a pre-emptive strike before anyone got on your case about ethical behavior mman
just wanted to send out a pre-emptive strike before anyone got on your case about ethical behavior mman

