Is any program/partner better or worse than others?

I recently had a problem with a GMAC insurance quote not posting to my HHonors account. After getting nowhere with GMAC, the HHonors rep comp'ed me the 1,000 points which was kind of her... but that's not how it's supposed to work.

I'd be interested to hear other people's experiences, good and bad.

sunchaser

With program miles earned within the program sponsor (such as flying UA for MP miles, staying at HH for HHonors points), its pretty rare. With regular partners, its somewhat rare. With providers that "buy miles", its all too common. I just emailed the local TV station's consumer help dept about one of them today (Park SFO) which won't even reply to emails and so on, for months.

Pretty rare, but just frequent enough with UA that I always make sure to check a few days after a flight that the miles have posted. (I won't even bother to say 'correctly'...I've long since lost track of all the various bonuses/deals that occur.)

I have to put in a missing mileage request probably about 3-6 times per year. Every time I can remember it's been a case of irregular ops or where I changed flights at the last second or some other weirdness which must have confused UA's computers.

-BP

[This message has been edited by BlatheringPenguin (edited 08-07-2002).]

Rare in my case, too. In the last 3 years, which is when I've traveled the most, CO, Marriott, Hilton and Delta have been fine. I think I may have missed one flight or one stay somewhere, but after one e-mail it got posted. AA missed one round trip. I sent an e-mail 3 times with no response other than the automated. Nothing. I know I could have pursued it, but I don't use AA that much, anyway.

Mileage Plus:
* UA flights 1 out of 20, but every second UA flight promotion bonus
* OS (NG) flights: 1 out of 5 (always if I change the frequentflier program at the Vienna Senator lounge, run by OS)
* other StarAlliance partner flights 1 out of 10
* Hilton (stays outside NorthAmerica): every second stay

miles&more:
* LH flights always posted automatically
* OS (NG) flights: 1 out of 5, but always if I change the frequentflier program at the last minute (from Mileage Plus to miles&more or back) at the Vienna Senator lounge, run by OS
* other StarAlliance partners

Qualiflyer:
* every InterContinental stay

Marriott:
* have to claim every stay in Bangkok, Thailand (the JW and the Royal Gardens, and I stayed there about 15 times in the last 5 years ...)
* every second Marriott stay in Germany (mostly Bremen)
* Renaissance worldwide always post

Sheraton/Starwoods
* 100% ok

Mileage Plus:
-StarAlliance partner flights 1 out of 2

Hilton HHonors:
-100% O.K., even bonus points

Starwood:
-100% O.K., bonus 60%

Goldpoints:
-lousy and late

I've given up having miles post to Alaska Airlines from Hilton stays; the miles simply never show up without my intervention. Never a problem when I choose a different airlines for HHonors Points & Miles

------------------
Addicted to airline miles? Check out: Mileage Workshop --- "You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer." - Frank Zappa (1940-93)

Hello FTers,

I have had a problem with getting the Delta Skymiles from two MCI Long Distance signups (one in late 2000 and the other in early 2002). They owe me approx. 11K miles and Delta has sent me a reply email in response to my email. Delta said that they have "NOTHING" to do with the offers, although I signed up for both offers on the Delta web page.

I recently complained to the MCI 800 number several months ago and 20 miles (that's right, twenty) Delta miles were posted to my account.

Does anyone have any experience with getting miles from MCI or should I post on the MCI page on FT?

Thanks in advance,


Va.SquireFlyer

For NW miles posting to my CO account I usually miss 1 out of every 2 segements. I have written in 6 times for some 30+ segments. Its an epidemic.

Great question!

Two points:
1. Each of us has a learning curve with each program. In my experience the worst are the car rental companies. I used to get my miles about 50% of the time. Now I repeatedly ask if my FF number is in the system and my miles come closer to 80% before I have to call or write. Needless to say, some of the "problems" are in the fine print.
2. I think an "average" can be ascertained by looking at Flyertalkers habits during the AA 20/20 promotion last summer. People seemed to feel that they needed about 5 "spare" partners to be safe. My family-of-4's experience was 97 partners, of which 9 didn't post without further communication (some quite extensive), and 2 never posted.

I don't see much overall difference from one program to another (United/AA/Hilton/...) but some partners are definitely worse than others, like Budget rent-a-car, and Best Western Hotels. It is mostly affected (I think) by franchise owners who have a vested interest in not understanding and not following their own rules.

Hey, Va.SquireFlyer,

If you sign up for MCI web account access you can see all of the FF credits they have supposedly posted to your account on a single page. If Delta doesn't show up on the page or there are some missing, call MCI to fix this, not Delta. They'll fix the discrepancy.

Now it is much better. 4-5 years ago, partners almost never posted without followup it seemed. Now they tend to post quite regularly.

Recent problems:
Spanair to UA, Sol Melia to UA and AVIS to Qualiflyer.

Miles that never have been posted:
Accor Hotels to Air France.

------------------
http://rucas0.tripod.com/miles/

[This message has been edited by rucas0 (edited 08-08-2002).]

AA has posted a perfect record since my enrollment more than a decade ago. CO missed an IB flight -- ouch, 7,000+ miles -- 10 years ago and never rectified the problem.

DL and SPG are near perfect, exception being partner promos. For some reason every time I stay at the LAX Hilton (almost every month) the points take forever to post and require f/u calls 2 - 3 times a year.