Miles make you smile...

Let me see if I follow. They mistakenly offer you something that cost you no time or effort and you didn't have before, then retracted their offer, explaining it was made in error, and you ask for compensation? It's bad enough that people are calling and demanding their 1000 miles, like teenagers who go beg mom for the car keys after dad has said No, but isnt a compensation request a little over the top? If you're just trying to prove your point that they've fostered more than 1k miles' worth of good will, a simple complaint may be better as the request for compensation may strike some as opportunistic at best, and greedy at the worst, both of which damage the credibility of your complaint.

Isn't that one of the biggest complaints from the DYKWIA (Do You Know Who I am) type - that bonuses are given to people who haven't "earned" them, while the loyalist is the most important customer and should be thanked with many gifts ;-)

I got the oops letter. Bad show on US. I thought the initial gesture was nice but was not impressed with the sorry note. It's like getting your kids to say their sorry. Doesn't ring true.

They were never credited to my acct.

Forgive my bluntness, but I took your response as a rude attack on me. I was not seriously asking for compensation. If you want to literally read my last post, then read the part where I said I didn't expect a response. They have every right in the world to give or not give me 1,000 miles. My email to them (which will not be persued or followed up by me) was to share my view, that promising someone something, then explaining the promise was made by mistake and then taking the promise back..... leads to a cost to the company of much more than it would have cost to fulfill the promise.

Let me be really clear, I do not expect, and I did not seriously ask for 2,000 miles. I don't even care too much if I get the 1,000 miles - but I wanted to send a message to US Airways, that their mistake (in sending out the first email) was only partly fixed with the second email. The second email got rid of the inadvertant debt of 1000 miles to me, but the mistake made in the first email has now cost the company goodwill and trust on my part. The 2,000 was simply just a number picked to represent that not following up on their promise was twice as costly (in loss of goodwill and trust) than actually fulfilling the original promise.

And the wise thing to have done would have been to do nothing. Those who received the notice in error (and were paying attention) would have inquired, and US could have quietly deposited the erroneous miles into their account as a goodwill gesture. Those who were not paying attention would not have even noticed. Instead, they came across looking like bumbling idiots who act before they think. Not good, US!

without tone of voice or other indicator, a one-way communication will likely be read literally. I promise I'm not the only one who read your post and was stunned to see someone seeking compensation over this. And whoever at US is also likely to read your email literally, and potentially dismiss your "claim" as being without merit, which doesn't really help them see your "point" that they let you down.

At any rate, my "attack" was not on you but rather your actions, and I still feel that asking for compensation in this scenario is way over-the-top. Not expecting a response doesn't equate to not seriously feeling like you're somehow entitled to the compensation anyway, and that's A pretty important fact to leave out.

In hindsight, the wise thing probably would have been to pull the entire promo. Have a do-over in a few months. I'm ok with them pulling back the offer from people who weren't on the original intended recipient list but i dont like thr way they did it; likewise, the backpedaling and giving out miles for people who call in is harmful to the corporate image. It reinforces the idea that "if you don't like what you're told, hang up and call again."

Remember, the "cost" of honoring the offer to those who weren't supposed to get it may be more than the value of the miles themselves; I've read many posts from folks whose surprise miles were going to keep their dormant accounts alive, so the "cost" there would be either the loss of whatever purchase or fee that account would have paid to keep the miles alive OR the cost of carrying those miles on the debt ledgers for another 18 months. Without knowing how many people got the mail in error and the status of their accounts, you can't put a price tag on it, but say there are 1000 dormant accounts with an average of 15k miles in them. That's 15 million miles on the books for an extra 18 months without any revenue earnings to "save" them. I don't know how airline financials work but I am guessing that's a significant amount of money, and a possible scenario. 1000 isn't that many accounts.

Finally, these miles have to come from somewhere. I'm guessing there's a finite budget. So would it have been better to go ahead and honor the mistake offer if it were at the expense of another promo? Maybe it would take 50 "hits" to get to 100k miles for Grand Slam 2011; would that change our feelings?

Not saying there is a "right" answer here, just guessing these were some of the questions being analyzed in the delay between the mistake offers and the oops emails.

This is not meant to be a statement on anyone else's actions, but it is beyond any level of understanding that I could have that anyone could expect anything greater than 1,000 miles out of this. I probably assumed most would look at the situation the same way, which was a mistake I made. By assuming that for asking for double of the original ammount, I knew it was not a serious request, and I assumed others would read it that way. Once again, that was my mistake.

At the end of the day, US hurt themselves pretty badly in public relations. I remember a mistake Delta made a few years ago. They created an online game that anyone who is a regular on here could easily fly through and score 10,000 miles. The game never went live in Delta's eyes, they never sent out a link, never invited anyone to play. Someone on FlyerTalk found the link by accident, put it on the board, everyone seemed to qualify, next thing you know, thousands (maybe 10's of thousands) of people won 10,000 Skymiles for about 3 mins. of their time, and no real effort. Delta decided that they would honor all of those miles, 10,000 miles takes a lot of people who were never going to earn an award to put an award within reach. 1,000 miles probably isn't a game changer for anyone.

Its also seems counterproductive to spend so much time discussing 1,000 miles that will not be received. So, I'll drop out of this discussion, unless someone asks a question of me, then I am always glad to respond.

Take care - and for all the US Airways flyers, even with this - its a pretty good week - all those extra upgrade opportunities.

Did you know that 1000 miles is good for a variety of magazines? Now my life will be changed by not having a years supply of xxx magazine.

Reminds me of a bad decision I made as a kid, where I burned 22,000 TWA miles on magazines I never read, just because I thought I would never fly them again.

I would probably have done so, only I got mine. They said
they were going to give something, and they didn't. Nah nah,
fooled you, says Doug Parker. It's not really breach of contract,
as most of us haven't done anything in reliance of their offer,
but it was a singularly boneheaded thing to do - perhaps worth
a thousand points (a buck according to this thread) in compensation!

I'm understanding you less and less. This isn't analogous in
any way. It's more like Dad saying, hey, why not take a ride
to the mall, and then you discover that Mom has the keys
and refuses to give them up.

Well, my miles posted in my account on Friday. I have yet to receive a follow up email so hopefully those miles are safe and sound.

http://boardingarea.com/blogs/onemi...s-right-on-their-1000-free-miles-email-fluke/

I received the Miles Smiles email followed by the Ooops email a few days later. I called tonight to ask if I could have the miles credited and it was done immediately.

+1. Without any fuss whatsoever. If you want the miles, just call. All this aggressive back and forth bickering here is totally unnecessary. Why can't we all just get along?

I went ahead and called as well -- might as well get the 1000 miles since I've already wasted enough time thinking about this. The miles we deposited immediately.

I called US Airways Dividend Miles customer service at (800) 428-4322 and they instantly credited my account 1000 "Customer Appreciation Bonus" miles.