FF Award error, what would you do?
 

In February 1994, I had about 120,000 FF miles in the TWA Frequent Flight Bonus (FFB) program. I cashed in 70,000 miles for a business class award. Back then, your award ticket could have two enroute stopovers and an open jaw. It was a great ticket: TWA Wash Dulles -> Paris CDG (stopover 1), TWA Paris -> Tel Aviv (outbound destination on the open jaw TWA ticket, then an El Al flight to Cairo), TWA Cairo -> Athens (stopover 2, and Turkish Airlines ticket from Istanbul back to Athens), then TWA Athens -> JFK -> D.C.

The trip was to occur in May. In March, After getting the ticket, I realized that we would be (met my nephew in Athens) in Turkey during Moslem holy days. I decided to push the trip back two weeks.

I called the FFB number to change the dates of travel for the award ticket and the lady said the following: "Well, you don't have enough miles to cash in for a second award ticket. And I'm concerned that there isn't enough time for you to send the existing ticket back, get the mileage credited, and get the new ticket sent out." She thought about it for a second and continued: "Here's what we'll do: you send in the old ticket and I'll send you the new one. When we receive the old ticket, we will just call it even." We had a deal.

It was a great, month-long trip, leaving in May and returning in June.

In November, I got an FFB statement crediting my account with 70,000 miles for the returned original ticket! This was five months after I had taken the trip on the replacement ticket.

This was obviously a mistake. I thought about my options:
1) cash in the miles immediately for a new ticket
2) call and straighten out the problem
3) wait until after the end of the year, since then they will have done an audit of their accounts. Give them some time to discover and fix the problem themselves and if they don't, then just quietly keep the miles.
4) Wait 3 months? 6 months?
5) ???

What would you do?

You did say 1994, yes?
Well as of Jan 02 all remaining miles from TWA should have been rolled over into your existing AA Freq.Flyer program or a new AA Freq.Flyer program (as TWA is now out of business).

How many miles were rolled into the AAFF program - or if not, where are your remaining miles? I would figure since they credited 70K you would still have the original 120K miles.

What do you now want to do in 2003?

Oh. I wasn't clear. Yes, my FFB miles are now AAdvantage miles. My question should have been:

what would you have done in this situation?
or
what would you do if that happened to you today?

Anyway, at the time, I asked several people what they would do. All but one said "keep the miles" or "do nothing". The one was my brother who suggested calling and straightening it out. Of course, that is what I knew I had to do.

Last week, I told the story to the woman sitting beside me on a UA flight. She said that if it had happened to her that she would have called to get the problem corrected. This was the first person, other than my brother, who had that response.

I did call and told the FFB lady that the call was about the miles. I explained that I had replaced the ticket, taken the trip, and that the ticket was returned to make things even. The FFB lady looked at my account and explained that, yes, the miles were posted because of the returned ticket and she apologized that it took so long. I explained, again, that I took the trip, this was a mistake, etc. etc.

Raising her voice, she said "No sir, you don't understand: everything is all correct now". My reply was "ok, thanks, goodbye". I've still got the miles (now in AA) and a clear conscience.

I would have felt it necessary to attempt to correct the situation, and I might have even said it twice to be sure they iunderstood.

But once they got huffy and insisted they were right, I'd also keep the miles with a clear conscience.

I would have called them to straighten out the matter. It is the right thing to do. Otherwise, it would be on my conscience. And if I got an inept agent on the phone that could not comprehend what I was saying, I would keep the miles with a clear conscience. I've been told you need to call the IRS 3 times before you get a correct answer!

I would have done the exact same thing. You did your best to clear up the matter. That's the important part. I hope you did something enjoyable with your miles.

mrwunrfl -

As my mom once told me when I actually found more money in a savings account many years back "don't spend it all in one place, as when the bank does their audit, it will probably be found; if you've spent it and they want it back you'll have to pay" - well I just left the funds in the account and sure enough in about 6-months it was gone from my account.

Similar, but not the same. You did call AA to correct the matter, but they insisted your account was correct. Sure you could have called again and gotten another answer and the miles could have been deducted. However, you didn't and the miles remain in your account.

While legally, the rules of most FF programs would state that these miles aren't yours - they still nave not been removed from your account, so I would use them, NOW!

Book a ticket somewhere. If in attempting to do so you run into a problem, then that's that, if not - hey, there is just so much you can do to correct the error. If you're still not comfortable, you can write a letter detailing these facts and wait to see if they remove the miles.

Otherwise, just use them as you've done what you could and if they don't want their miles back, what are you going to do - go on bended knee and beg them? They'll likely believe you're a very honest member, but also probably a bit crazy. However, because of your honesty, they might just let you keep them and maybe even give you bonus miles. Who knows.

You've got to do what you gut tells you.

AA once credited my husband's account for the wrong number of miles for a flight (a lot of extra miles in his favor). He wrote to correct it, and they thanked him and left the miles in the account anyway. I think it may be their (unwritten) policy. It sure bought a lot of good will.