Wrangling for Air Miles

This isn’t going to be the most exciting post. To make up for it, I’m starting us off with a cute picture of raccoons in Vancouver’s Stanley Park.

dscf1194 Wrangling for Air Miles

It looks like there might be a chink in Qantas’ armor – online questions about booking. I had the following question:

Hello. My wife and I just booked a flight from Los Angeles to Auckland. I noticed when we booked there was a drop-down menu for selecting our frequent flyer program, but Continental OnePass wasn’t one of the selections. When we last flew Qantas about 16 months ago, our Qantas miles went into our Continental accounts. Can you advise me to make sure they get into the right place?

Here’s the response:

Thank you for your request for Qantas Frequent Flyer points. I’m unable to credit you with points on this occasion, as your transaction was not with one of our program partners. If you’d like to know more about our program partners, please visit qantas.com/frequentflyer where you’ll find details of your membership benefits, along with our latest news and offers.

Yours sincerely

Richard Switzky
General Manager
The Qantas Club Frequent Flyer Service Centre

Um, Richard? Did you actually read my question? We both speak English, but clearly different forms of it.

I sent nearly the same e-mail to Continental, and this was their response:

Dear [Wandering Justin]:

Thank you for contacting the OnePass Service Center and I apologize for any inconvenience not being able to enter your account number online.

Please contact the airline directly to give the representative your OnePass account number and ask that it be added to your flight reservation. Give your account number at the time of check-in for each flight. Please retain your ticket receipts and original boarding passes until you verify that the proper mileage has been posted to your OnePass account.

Partner flights should be reflected in accounts within six weeks. Bonus mileage associated with the flight may be posted separately at a later date.

Regards,

Rose Goldstein
OnePass Service Center

Now, that’s much better. I’ve only flown Continental a few times, and I it’s my favorite domestic airline by a long shot. That’s why I want to make sure my Qantas miles wind up in my Continental account. The only alternative is American Airlines (shudders with revulsion).

I’m sure Qantas will still deliver the goods on the flight – it’s a quality airline. But the online contacts clearly could be far better.

UPDATE: I spent about 10 minutes holding for an agent on a Qantas phone number. I got through to a real person, explaned the situation, and he took care of it. I’ll need to get Sarah’s Continental number to her reservation, too. But it looks like talking to a real person makes this pretty fuss-free.