Updates at the bottom

In the past, I have foregone requesting missing miles. I hate paperwork and mailing things.

During the race to reach Silver (oh, BTW, I hit Silver this Fall! w00t!) miles became more important to me. Now that I have enough to start using miles, I want to get all I can.

And so, I have resorted to mailing in boarding passes and ticket print-outs in order to receive credit for missing miles. It was almost painless. Almost.

I’m a US Airways member. Due to my frequent trips to SF and the fact that US Airways’ HQ is in Phoenix, it made the most sense to choose them and use them as much as possible. The nice thing about US Airways is that they’re a Star Alliance member. When I flew to Chicago in June on United, I got credit for those miles. That was exciting for me.

I flew United to SF in November, because my company’s travel agency chose them, probably due to price & availability. The miles didn’t show up.

They likely forgot to include my Dividend Miles number, or maybe the fact that it is a US Airways number, it didn’t work. Either way, it got booked without my account linked to it.

I printed out my “eTicket” from the agency and mailed it with the United Airlines boarding passes to US Airways. They got back to me within a reasonable amount of time and told me the eTicket didn’t have all the information they needed. I needed to get a copy of an “actual ticket” from my agency. I emailed the agency and they told me to use the eTicket. I replied reiterating US Airways’ demand for one detail the eTicket was lacking. Finally today, I received a cryptic type of receipt that may or may not include what US Airways is looking for. It’s not clearly labeled, but perhaps they know what they’re looking for on it.

If not, I might be screwed out of about 1,600 miles & 2 segments, because I don’t think I can dig up any more information.

It all seems a little more complicated than it needs to be. US Airways should be able to query United Airlines directly, if they’re both Star Alliance partners. They’ve got the confirmation number and ticket number.

A little disappointed. I’ll update this post when/if I get credit for these miles…

Update 1 12/16/09: They couldn’t open my PDF. I’m guessing it’s either a Mac issue, or maybe their CRM garbled it. I need to fax or mail it. Anyone have a facsimile device and a land line I can borrow?

Update 2 1/2/10: It took me a few days to get around to printing, enveloping, stamping, and mailing it. A few days later, they emailed me to say they had received it and submitted it to United for verification. They said it should take less than 30 days to get confirmation and post to my account. Finally, around 1/1-1/2, the miles posted to my account with my wonderful 25% bonus miles for being Silver! (Note: the original travel date was 11/16-11/25)

Phew!