Skywards is the frequent flyer program for Emirates and SriLankan. We have flown with Emirates to Australia and to New Zealand; their business class service is simply superb. Fly out business and the air miles you earn make for an affordable upgrade on the home leg. The wonderful lounge in Dubai, the chauffeur service, and priority check-in for Silver members flying economy are further inducements. In May 2005 we stayed at the Hilton in Blackpool, a partner hotel, hoping to put the air miles we would earn towards an upgrade on our next long-haul trip. Unfortunately, some 3.5 months later, getting these miles credited to my Skywards account has proven impossible—blemishing an otherwise excellent impression of Emirates. My advice? Leave your Skywards card at home: it's not worth the effort.
The ambiguous promise
The Skywards web site seems to make it pretty clear what to do about missing miles, advising that partner credit should appear on your account within 8 weeks:
Ahh, but wait! This is 8 weeks after your bringing the missing miles to their attention—not within 8 weeks of your stay.
Communication breakdown
Just shy of 8 weeks later, on 19.07.05, I sent a fax to the Manchester Service Centre (01625 445 271) comprising my Hilton invoice with a note to "Please ensure the appropriate miles are added to my account". I heard nothing, and no miles appeared, so I resent the fax on 27.07.05 with the message "Not appeared. Please confirm receipt + action". On 04.08.05 I got through to the Manchester Service Centre, and was told they were aware of my claim and that an e-mail would be sent to Dubai to ensure it was dealt with promptly. I sent my third fax o 24.08.05, asking "Why are you ignoring me? Please advise how to make an official complaint." On 25.08.05 I said much the same thing using the online feedback form on the Skywards web site. It was in response to the feedback form that I finally got a response from Jean-Christophe de Simone at the Manchester Service Centre. His e-mail confirmed receipt of my original fax on 19.07.05, confirmed the recording of my formal complaint, apologised for "not having been in a position to answer your faxes", and promised to ensure the claim was dealt within two months (from the date of my first fax, not the date of my stay).
Explanations
By way of reply I asked M. de Simone two straight-forward questions:
Could you please explain why you publish a fax number, if you are not in a position to acknowledge anything sent to it (although you apparently did receive my first fax of 19.7.05)?
There is unfortunately no satisfactory explanation as to why your recent faxes remained without answers, that is why I was only able to offer you our apologies.
Could you please explain why, in this age of electronic communications, it takes three and a half months to credit mileage to a customers account?
I do not believe you will find much satisfaction either in any answers regarding your second question, but having looked at the details of your hotel invoice, I noticed that your Skywards membership number was recorded as "EK EK---------" instead of "EK---------". That small formatting anomaly may have been sufficient to inhibit the automatic credit of mileage to your Skywards account. Once we fall outside the automatic process, we are totally reliant on our members alerting us to the fact that they have not received mileage for a particular stay with one of our hotel partners, for example. That is where the process of a retroactive claim starts. From experience, we evaluate that it takes between 6 and 8 weeks to complete this process (which does not seem to benefit much from modern technology). The Skywards Membership Guide (page 72, section 2.4) states that: "Miles can take eight weeks or more to be credited to a Member from the date of transaction". As you would expect, processes are a lot simpler and quicker when our members are claiming retroactive credit relating to flights completed with Emirates or SriLankan. We are aware of the fact that, on many occasions, our processing times for Skywards Partners activities are still too long and we actively continue to look for ways of improving this particular aspect of our operation.
How did it end?
Eight weeks after my first fax, and into the 16th week since I checked out of the Hilton, the partner credit is... missing in action. M. de Simone, true to his promise to follow up
my claim, wrote:
I am sorry to report that we have not yet received our partner's final response regarding your retroactive claim for mileage credit. In order to prevent further delays, I have credited 500 good will miles to your account in connection with your stay at the Hilton Hotel in Blackpool between 27th and 28th May 2005. As and when we receive approval from our partner, this good will mileage activity may be replaced by the correct hotel credit activity (that would be reflected on your Skywards statement). I have also credited another 500 miles, purely as a good will gesture and I would like to offer, once again, our sincere apologies for the inconvenience you have experienced in the process. In total your account has been credited with 1,000 Skywards miles today.
Thanks to M. de Simone for his efforts: I do believe he might be about as frustrated as I am. I have to "move on" now and get the Hilton invoice out of my "Pending" tray and through the shredder. I can't help but wonder, as I put my frustration to bed, how an issue like crediting air miles can seem so simple to the consumer, yet can cause such a headache for Skywards who are presumably expert at doing just that. I don't want to find cause to complain about the products and services I use, but in this consumer-driven society we have come to expect "reasonable" standards. Would you wait 16 weeks for a cheque to clear? Would you wait 16 weeks for your mail order RAM upgrade? Would you wait 16 weeks for a travel agent to confirm your online booking? No, nor would I.
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