You are right, the online booking bonus ex CH is history, but is still valid for tickets starting outside CH.

For anybody familiar with Swiss laws on this board: what is it that suddenly made online booking bonuses illegal in CH? SR and LX both had them for years...

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airOli, the Swiss Air Line. ;)

To me it sounds like that guy just didn´t have an excuse ready, so he blamed it on the lawyers....

Even though I´m not an expert in aviation law, I can´t come up with a reason why online booking bonuses should be illegal all of a sudden. I could only imagine it having to do with antitrust or unfair competition laws, but if you look around, almost every airline offers these bonuses. And why such a prohibition should only apply to flights originating in Switzerland is just beyond me...

They had the promotion for sometimes. But it ended it think it was March 2002.

The sign was still on for the flight sarting outside CH. I asked Qualiflyer more 3 times why they said the promotion was over. They also did not know about the flight starting outside CH. I had the send them an email with the Gif attached !. I also was credited 2 times for flights booked online starting GVA but after sending emails.

I suppose we could do something about it.

What do you think about it M Huegli as a lawyer ???.

kooks.

Well, promotions are more or less voluntary incentives given out by the airline. As long as they promise the bonus miles either in writing or orally (problem of proof), they are legally bound to credit your account. Once the promise is gone (e.g. no longer a notice on their website), you as a customer don´t have a claim for these bonus miles.
If they credit you by mistake, this does not give you the right to be "mistakenly credited" the next time. The only thing you can do is just give it a try with customer service and see whether you get them. As far as legal steps, I don´t see any chance for success.

... I also think those couple of miles would not be worth any legal effort. Nevertheless, herzlichen Dank to huegli for his expertise.

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airOli, the Swiss Air Line. ;)

Just an idea: I still have the e-mail from the internet desk team leader. Wouldn't it be interesting to have a lawyer's opinion on wether or not there might be legal reasons for swiss to not offer the online bonus in ch but everywhere else? If we find out that "legal reasons" is a bunch of balony then we could try to get the promotion "reactivated", or at least give this guy a lesson to not just mail out bozo "legal reason" explanations. Hmm, customer service might be interested in a couple of tcqm's + -g's opinions on this. Maybe.

My interpretation of the removal of the bonus ex-CH is that e>ticket/checkin/booking/everything has "worked" in the "home" market CH. If the numbers of e>"flyers" is not increasing dramatically any more and there must be some point at which e>services are "saturated", why offer a extra incentive to people for doing something they would do anyway? I also feel the "legal reasons" are an excuse but whether this is the case or not, handing out miles is at Qualiflyers/LX's discretion and I personally would not bother taking the matter much further for the limited gains. Personally, I prefer paper tickets (easier to endorse) and Qualiflyer Newsletters (nicer to read) and only take the e>options for the miles (saving QF/LX money too, I suppose). I would change back to paper if they were no longer offered.

I find the Qualiflyer programme quite generous/flexible compared to several others and generally try not to bite the hand that "feeds" me. I was once by ground staff many years ago, after witnessing "a scene" at the transfer desks in ZRH that there is a "place in the computer system" which can be used to describe customers as being "easy" of "difficult" (maybe proportional to the number / type of "complaints"??) I have no idea whether it's true, but as a "story" it may be worth bearing in mind.
Rgds

If I flew London Heathrow to Berlin via Zurich and used the e>checkin to through check in one transaction would I receive 1000 bonus miles, or would I need to do an additional checkin for the Zurich - Berlin sector to get the the 1000 bonus miles?

You cannot currently perform any e>check-in in LHR (just tried it myself two weeks back, there are no such facilities there). You would have to check in manually at LHR for LHR-ZRH only, and perform e>check-in in ZRH for ZRH-TXL to get at least the 500 miles for one segment.

I seem to remember Swissair had e>checkin at LHR and assumed that Swiss had taken it over.

The Swissair website used to be really brilliant when it came to info on services, etc - they used to have a detailed section about e>checking, how to use it and what airports it could be found at.

At Zurich, Geneva & Basle are there any e>checkin terminals after security or does one have to pass through immigration, etc to use the terminals landside?

What airports can these terminals be found at?

I am not aware of any airside terminals on these airports. I also think that those are currently the only ones with working e>checkin stations.



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airOli, the Swiss Air Line. ;)

e>ticket bonus still valid.

30.09.02 e>ticket Promotion 1000
29.09.02 TP5411 N Paris-Lisbon 1000*
16.09.02 TP5460 N Oporto-Paris 1000*
16.09.02 TP1962 N Lisbon-Oporto 500*
30.09.02 Companion Ticket -15000

Anyway, it seems that it's missing e>ticket bonus for one segment.

My friend, traveling with companion ticket didn't get any bonus.

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rucas0

You should call or send your boording passes to get the missing miles.

kooks.

I am still waiting for the e-ticketing bonus (flights on Aug, 2st and 4th!). I have already emailed to Swiss, sent faxes and called the service center. It is unbelievable, but they do not respond. I am really disappointed, especially, as Swiss companies are/were known as being reliable. Has anybody of you Swiss FT fellows a telephon number / email address of a Qualiflyer supervisor, who might be willing to help.

If you are Travelclub you can call the ZRH Travelclub Qualiflyer Desk, they keep an eye on things that are sent to backoffice, so at least something will happen eventually. Backoffice is in India, and it is like a black hole.