How can IBERIA claim to be a One World member when it does not credit points from other members ?

Welcome to FT!

What exactly do you mean by "credit points from other members"?

You must realise that certain classes of service do not earn miles no matter who your FFP is.

Basically you have to read the fine print, and get to know each programme before crying out loud here.

And welcome to FlyerTalk even if your first post is sort of like whining!

I'm also wondering how the non-creditting of points amounts to a "lack of customer service". To me, "customer service" is how you are actually handled before, during and after a flight, not in creditting points.

Dave

Welcome to Flyer Talk travelling4fun

As referred to already, there are some flights that do not earn points. To help us check if you should have earned points, can you please say which airline you were flying and with what type of fare (cheap economy, expensive economy, business, first, award, upgraded, etc)?

How long ago was your flight? It can take a week or two for points to credit when flying on an airline other than that of your frequent flyer program (FFP). Eg when I fly Lan and credit to Qantas it typically takes up to a month to get the points. This is because airlines don't exchange info about flights to credit every day but instead process them in batches.

It seems the flight in question is BA MAD-LHR on an IB codeshare.

Sorry I wasn't clear enough in my original 'whine'. I travelled from Rio to London in Business Class in December. The leg from London was a codeshare and Iberia refuse to credit me with the points. Here's the sequence of events :

2007
22 December 2007
Depart GIG for LHR via MAD on IB 6026 and IB7442

23 December
MAD to LHR turns out to be a codeshare and IB7442 is in fact BA457

2008
11 January
Email received from IBERIA in response to mine asking me to fax or email my boarding pass and a photocopy of the ticket.

18 January
Posted Boarding Pass – which lists the e-ticket number - by recorded by International Signed For - Royal Mail from UK to IBERIA in Madrid

28 January
E-mailed scan of the Boarding Pass to IBERIA

7 February
Emailed IBERIA explaining that Boarding Pass had been posted – and that it was an e-ticket and therefore there was no ticket.

12 February
Re-sent email of 7 February since no response had been received.

14 February
Re-sent email of 7 February since no response had been received.

15 February
Re-sent email of 7 February since no response had been received.

25 February
Emailed a copy of the e-ticket supplied by Travelocity to IBERIA

25 February
Faxed a copy of the e-ticket supplied by Travelocity

26 February
IBERIA replied saying I had to send a copy of the ticket with the ticket number – despite this being on the Boarding Pass

26 February
By email – explained there was no ticket. Also asked for my letter to be passed on to a supervisor

28 February
Re-sent because there was no response

29 February
Re-sent because there was no response

29 February
Faxed email to IBERIA along with Travelocity’s ticket

29 February
Received email which stated that I had to send a photocopy of the ticket which my travel agency could provide if I did not have it.

3 March
Travelocity replied to my query with this : Please note that an e-ticket was issued for you under the above booking reference. I would like to inform you that an e-ticket is only a ticket number which is stored in the airline system and has no physical presence.Therefore, it is unable to send a copy of the ticket. However, if you provide your ticket number (XXX-XXXXXXXXX) to the airline, they will definitely be able to help you.

I emailed and faxed this response to IBERIA

4 March
IBERIA emailed the following response :
In accordance with the information you have supplied, for getting the ticket,you have to ask in the travel agency or where the ticket was emiited ,they have the obligation of having it during one year We trust that future contact with us will be to your complete satisfaction. Yours sincerely,Iberia Plus Customer Service

5 March
Emailed IBERIA to ask for the name or title and email address of someone I could complain to about the poor Customer Service.

5 March
Sought assistance from Travelocity – who promised to look into this.

11 March
Email response from Travelocity :
I have checked with the airline and have been advised that you need to call Iberia plus directly at 0034 913 742 442 to credit the miles to your account. You need to refer to the ticket number (XXX-XXXXXXXXX) while contacting them.

12 March
I emailed Travelocity to tell them that IBERIA would not help me.

12 March
Travelocity responded by email thus :
Please be informed that we have already contacted Iberia and they have categorically informed us that you are required to contact them directly on 0034 913 742 442 regarding your air miles. They will not accept our call as they require customer interaction directly on this.

13 March
Called IBERIA – spoke to someone who made sense and emailed a copy of the Boarding Card and the e-ticket number.

Travelocity continued to try to assist me.

13 March
Re-sent email of 12 March which had not been acknowledged

14 March
By telephone spoke to what sounded a helpful agent at IBERIA. She told me what to fax and so I did. Travelocity also continued to try to help me but in the morning replied thus :
I have contacted Iberia Plus on 0034913742737 and forwarded your IB Plus card number IB XXXXXX. Upon checking the flight details, they have confirmed that they cannot credit the air miles to your IB card as the flight booking is a past dated flight. I regret the inconvenience caused and I trust that in the circumstances you will understand why I am unable to be of further assistance on this matter.

What class of travel where you in (economy or club europe)? Do you know your booking class?

OP has already stated that he traveled to London in "Business class", and has no complaint about that aspect, so presumably he was in CE on BA.

But his experience with IB is classic and the same thing happens routinely for tickets and not just for the FF plan. Once it took 3 IB agents and almost 2 hours to re-issue a simple full-J ticket which had no complications (rather unusually for me). This was in MAD after a mechanical caused a reroute. Another time a difficult reissue took less time, and 1 agent, but still about twice as long as CX or AA would have typically taken. Often the agents are very nice but apologetic and powerless. They hit some obstacle and then are clueless as to how to proceed -- or must wait until the 1 person who knows how to do it is available. It seems that 99% of IB ground staff do not how to do the less frequent aspects of their job. Now IB is greatly improved from 3 years ago -- then IB agents would tell you to get lost and not bother them; now they tell you to wait, and hope you'll give up and go away on your own, or they find some loophole to justify not working further. Air Nostrum (100% owned by IB) is amazingly different in this regard, hard to believe it is the same airline (they are excellent, a rare case of commuter jets being preferred over mainline).

I hate it when my tickets are emiited.

Seriously though, I would recommend focusing on contacting only IB. Travelocity is just the booking agent and has nothing to do whatsoever with credit of FF points/miles

Hi travelling4fun, whose ticket did you issue the ticket on? BA or IB? It sounds like IB.

With the IB ticket number, IB *should* be able to retrieve the ticket number. But then again, we are talking about IB inefficiency. Here we have all the airlines touting e-ticket as the way to the future , and yet when it comes to crediting of miles, no one in the FFP department knows of anything other than hard copies!

You have to get Travelocity to retrieve from their archieves the e-ticketing information. The worst they have to do is to retrieve from their archieves your PNR and your booking info. From your booking info, they SHOULD be able to get you your ticketing information which includes a copy of your ticket..!

Question - did you give your FFP number to the airline when you made your reservation, and at time of check in? Was your number on the BP?

OP has already stated that he traveled to London in "Business class", and has no complaint about that aspect, so presumably he was in CE on BA.

I had similar experience flying J on Air New Zealand and trying to get United Miles. Had e-ticket with ANZ. There was a flight change (ANZ had cancelled our earlier flight so we took later AKL-LAX flight). I mailed everything to United. Got rejection letter. Sent all again with explanation. Faxed 3 times. Called. Never any miles. Just avoid ANZ whenever possible now. Also, they lost all 4 our of checked bags!

So, on 17 March I sent Iberia another fax asking for the name and contact details of a manager or supervisor to whom I could complain. Of course there was no response. However, the following day I noticed that at long last some points had been credited. This was enough to take my total over the gold threshold......though my account was and is still listed as silver. I'll give them a couple more days before I raise that one ! That might decide whether or not I really pursue the supervisor/manager complaint ......

Well, I'm a bit shocked by your problem. If you were traveling from Brazil to the UK under the same PNR and, apparently, you got the points for the leg operated by IB, I don’t know how it’s possible that they didn’t credit the points for the leg operated by BA. In principle, they “go together”. (… but points at BA sometimes are credited later than at IB.)

I am an Iberia Plus cardholder since more than 10 years ago, and what I can tell you is that, even if in the past they were more efficient, they give you the points without problems, if your account was not properly updated. The only thing you have to do is following the rules.

1st rule: Any claim for pending points on IB-coded flights (except IB5xxx, which is Clickair; and IB7xxx, which is Oneworld and other codeshared airlines) are now made exclusively through the website. You only have to fill the data they ask to you. For IB5xxx, IB7xxx, or points earned in any other IB Plus airline (Binter, Mexicana, AA…), it’s done through the Iberia Plus centre. The points regarding any other partners (hotels, car hire…) must be claimed directly to the partner through any of the e-mail addresses that IB Plus shows in their website.

2nd rule: If you live outside Spain, you have to contact the Iberia Plus centre of your country of residence. Some of them have been transferred to Spain. Check it out in their website.

3rd rule: In order to claim pending points:
- remember that you have 6 months in order to ask for them
- use the normal mail (not e-mail / fax) to contact IB and send it ONCE: explain briefly who you are (name and IB Plus number), and what happened (claim of X points for a the flight IB7xxx). Attach:

(a) a copy of your itinerary (see www.checkmytrip.com or your email). As an alternative, you can also copy and paste the e-ticket itself, that the issuer sent to you at the time of the purchase. For instance, this is what IB sends to me each time I buy a ticket. (Some data was substituted by "xxxxxx".) Sorry for the low quality of the copy and paste, the words are not aligned.)

As you can see, I put in bold some key data: PNR, code of the fare, class of travel, FQTV number, number of the e-ticket...

(b) also attach a copy of the boarding passes, where the electronic ticket number appears.

Like this it should work. I think that you are missing the ticket (or the receipt of the e-ticket). As the flight was operated by BA, IB cannot access the data without having it, even if the boarding pass shows the e-ticket number. (Recall that IB needs your PNR and so on to know which class you were flying, and all this info is shown in the e-ticket receipt.)

Good luck. In principle, they take 30-40 days to update your account when the claims are not done automatically through the website.

GATO.

ps: by the way, take your boarding passes. Bellow your name, does the boarding pass shows "IBXXXXXX", being XXXXXX your IB Plus number? If it appears, then for sure you will get the points. If not, that's why the points were not credited: the computer did not recognised you as an IB Plus cardholder. My advice it that you write the IB Plus number at the time of the purchase. Being the IB Plus card number saved with your reservation, you can be sure that you will get the points.

Gato Volador said right, Iberia plus agents not dealing with Gold/platinum member are not so efficient that the ones on that departament.

Olease try to contact Iberia again, as points should be credited into your account.