VS Wont Credit Miles For a Paid Full J Flight

I booked a full J LAX to LHR on Contiental.com and originally had my Continental FF number on my ticket. At the airport I decided to switch to my Delta FF number. The VS agent gladly did so.

Little did I know that I could not accrue miles for a VS ticket booked on CO.com with a DL FF number.

I wrote VS with my original bp attached and asked them to credit my VS account since I had not received credit for my very expensive VS flight.

They wrote back and sorry...no miles for you! They wrote that since DL is on my boarding pass and it doesnt technically accrue miles in such a booking scenario that there is nothing thet can do to help me.

This doesnt make much sense:[:?]
1. I spent $5,500 on a one way ticket
2. My mileage credit mix-up is based on an obscure technicality
3. Since, presumably, I am a desirable customer they should be bending over backwards to help me out here. Instead they are making me waste countless minutes trying to get this squared away.
4. It is not like I am asking for something that I do not deserve. I paid, I flew, I get miles.
5. I already have additional VS Upper Class reservations as I very much enjoyed the product and I am nearly convinced that I should switch back over to CO or BA if VS is going to be so blindingly rigid in enforcing its rules...but I really dont want to.

I need some help here. What should my next move to VS be?

Thanks,
DR


{mcuth: moved to Flying Club forum from General Discussion}

45 views and no suggestions. That's not a good sign if this stumps VS experts!

I'm on the phone now talking to special services and they do not know what to do with me either...
This is not looking good.[:#]

Write back to them quoting the person you spoke to on the phone and escalating. Youmight have just got the 'default' letter back from them first timeand need to get to the next level

DR - I don't know the answer but, so you don't feel ignored, I sympathise!

Oh, and please accept a very warm welcome to v-flyer. I wouldn't be surprised if someone who can be more helpful than me offers a view later today.

Best wishes

David

[Pete]

I'm kinda of stumped too - although I lean toward agreeing with you. If there's no benefit derived from the DL code in the booking, then it's not ask if there's anything to reverse out. Possibly the system just doesn't allow them to make changes after the flight if the field is already populated? Difficult to know - perhaps one of the Flying Club team on V-Flyer could explain?

[Scrooge]

As the other poster have said,im stumped...better to say nothing than to give the wrong info.

It looks like as your Delta FF number was in there, and since Delta is an earning partner (if no longer a spending partner) Virgin are assuming that your request on the day was to earn Delta miles on the flight. This means you cannot also earn Virgin miles. There is no double-dipping on points for flights.

Thanks all for the responses thus far.

To clear up one point...I have not accrued mileage in any program for this flight. DL won't post the miles. VS won't post the miles. CO won't post the miles.

It seems to me that VS should. It was their metal, it was their agent who co-conspired (along with me) to change my FF number to one that could not accrue. On top of all that...wouldnt you want just this type of flyer to use your program and not your competition's?

[preiffer]

Originally posted by Drivingrain
On top of all that...wouldnt you want just this type of flyer to use your program and not your competition's?

To be honest, not really.

You were originally going to credit the miles to CO - THEN DL. Only when you realised you wouldn't earn with either did you then try to credit them to VS.

Hardly loyal to a fault...

[Decker]

I'm a bit confused. You booked a Continental flight operated by VS? So you didn't book a VS flight but a CO. Why would VS have any responsibility at all to you in relation to miles? You've nailed your colours to the mast as it were.

Or can you book a VS flight on CO's web site? That seems a bit strange.

[Decker]

OK was your ticket stub for a CO or a VS flight? I'm assuming the former (courtesy of Occam's Razor) in which case from the terms and conditions...

15.2 Continental Airlines:
Continental Airlines: Code share services operated by Continental Airlines with tickets bearing a 'VS' flight prefix will earn miles. Tickets with 'CO' prefix will not qualify for miles.

So your beef is actually with Continental which is handy as you obviously are a frequent flyer with them and thus will be able to pull rank to pull them into line. [y]

If it WAS a VS ticket stub then as everyone says it sounds strange but hopefully resolvable.

I made the mistake of booking my last VS trip on CO.com. After returning from my trip I checked my balance... all of my flights were in my VS ff account, however only the CO Metal internal US flights earned miles. My VS1/2 flights said they were not mileage earning flights.

I wrote to VS, and told that because I was on a CO flight operated by VS I would not earn miles. I had purchased tickets for CO8221/8222. VS referenced this portion of the terms and conditions:

Continental Airlines:
Continental Airlines: Code share services operated by Continental Airlines with tickets bearing a 'VS' flight prefix will earn miles. Tickets with 'CO' prefix will not qualify for miles.

Apparently CO ticket stock on a CO flight which is codeshared to be operated by VS is not eligable for VS mileage. At least that's where my inquires ended. I guess it wasn't worth the $80 it saved me by booking through CO.

Edit: Sorry Decker- I didn't realize I had copied the same snippet of the T&C as you.

[Decker]

No worries Mike. It's just an alien concept to me - logically you CAN'T book a VS flight on a CO site. Yet you refer to your VS flight so obviously there is a mindset difference here . Given VS lose a chunk of margin on making codeshares available it's no surprise that they don't want to compound their loss by giving away miles. Codeshares are frequently cheaper than base metal fares but given VS advertise that you won't get the same fare cheaper on the web the old adage about "looking to good too be true" maintains... I know it's a "hard" attitude but if people look to fly on VS metal more cheaply by using codeshares they aren't really loyal VS customers from VS's perspective.

I completely see where you're coming from- (no worries mate).

When I booked through CO it wasn't actually solely because it was cheaper- I hadn't gone to CO looking for a cheaper flight, it just happened to be cheaper. I had to book SYR-EWR-LHR-EWR-SYR. The VS website, to this day, still doesn't accurately address the CO code-share flights out of EWR. If I go on right now and try to book that routing, VS tells me there are no flights, and the CO website tells you there is.

At the time I booked it, I was too busy to call the VS desk, besides the online booking bonus VS was advertising wouldn't apply because their website-res system interface doesn't work right, but my overall booking through CO was because CO actually found the flights, and VS didn't.

I actually learned after, when going through the mileage questions with VS, that the website doesn't really understand some of the CO codeshares, and for one reason or another it will return no available flights, even when they're there. Unfortunately the answer from VS was to "call VS res next time".

I, of course, in my infinate wisdom asked if they'd give the online bonus when forced to book over the phone when the website didn't work right, and was told, "oh I don't think we can do that"

As someone that works for an airline, I really do understand how all of this works, but it really blows my mind that in order to get one of the CO codeshare flights, you have to call res--at least it always appears to be that way with the EWR-SYR ones. I was looking at SYR-EWR-LHR-EWR-SYR last night, for November, same story. VS doesn't see them, CO does...

Interestingly, I (the OP) booked only a VS flight on co.com and it is on VS ticket stock. There were no connecting flights...just a one-way VS J LAX-LHR booked on CO.com

[preiffer]

VS ticket stock is one thing - but what was the flight number?

Does it start with VSxxxx or COxxxx? That determines the answer...

Originally posted by preiffer
VS ticket stock is one thing - but what was the flight number?

Does it start with VSxxxx or COxxxx? That determines the answer...

Correct. If you had booked the CO codeshare flight number as I did, then it is not eligable for mileage, per the T&C.

As an example, I booked CO8222 EWR-LHR and CO8221 LHR-EWR. Actually operated by VS2 and VS1, but because of the CO designator, uneligable for mileage/tp's.