More like a sign of things already happened. The four largest US carriers all now have decided that customers do not deserve the ability to track their accounts via 3rd party sites unless the airlines are paid for such access. A shame, really.
It's pretty ridiculous that I can access all of my financial data via a third-party site, but I can't access my frequent flier miles via the same mechanism.
Does that 3rd party site have an agreement with your financial institution? Does it use agreed-upon APIs or scrape the banks' screen?
That's certainly how Quicken does it. There are even standards around it (I worked on something related many years ago).
I may not be surprised but I am disgusted. Where does it end with these guys? The poster above who said the banks have no problem letting 3rd parties read ALL of our financial info hit it right on the head.
Maybe ... just maybe Banks do not view our financial data (balance, etc) as financially valuable or marketable goods. In fact there are probably financial privacy issues at stake ... Airlines on the other hand have already acknowledged that their FF programs is in fact a valuable/profitable business unit. Therefore any & all data from that program is theirs to control.
I don't buy it Ed. I think most of us would agree that if people found out how many miles we had, it would not be the end of the day. Might even make us proud. But I imagine no one wants their financial details/secrets compromised yet the holders of our information will allow access to those we authorize. You're right - it's their ball and they can do whatever they want with it. But this is nothing more than a giant corporation trying to shake down a small company for, relatively, a few pennies. Loyalty program? Does a decision like this make any of us feel more "loyal"?
Yeah - you're right. It just confirms that I'll continue being a mile whore and sleep with whoever gives me the best deal of the moment! You know, I guess I can occasionally kid myself that the airlines are quietly happy to have people like us who tell the world that miles can be great and can work. Maybe it helps them to sell those miles to us, to credit card companies, etc. Sorry all, in a down mood. It seems that things are going away at a faster and faster rate. Article after article talking about the end of these programs as we know it and sorry, I didn't get into this to fly economy to Australia! Also a bad cold. I'll be better tomorrow!
I changed my United email address as Award Wallet suggested. On the United website, I cannot find a link that will email me (AwardWallet) my latest mileage balance. Is it there somewhere and since it is the only way to somewhat automatically update the balances, how can I do this?
On your email subscription page in your account, you can add a new email address and there is a selection for your monthly MileagePlus statement.
Award Wallet doesn't seem to be very good. When I signed up 3 months ago it excluded several of my airline FF accounts. If I recall it is no longer doing doing AA. Now UA. It doesn't seem that good of a product. I rarely check my accounts: BA, UA, Marriott, Delta.
I am not using AW, but I don't understand how you come to the conclusion that AW isn't a good product considering the topic of this thread !?
Also Southwest and Delta. Because those carriers want AwardWallet and others to pay them to license the data.
