Service providers love to take their customers for granted! And that is notwithstanding the mantra of offering the best and treating their customers right.
The Star Alliance group of airlines are one such group that care little about their passengers’ welfare.
The airlines in the Star Alliance family all have their separate individual programmes for ‘Frequent Flyers’ or ‘Frequent Travellers’ as passengers who use these airlines frequently are referred to.
These airlines have some plans or programmes purported to benefit these class of travellers. Frequent travellers accrue mileage on each trip and once a certain total number of mileage is accumulated, the passenger then is entitled to some benefits or awards as stipulated by the particular airline.
Before any of these airlines joined the Star Alliance group, passengers had little or no problem getting mileages accredited to their accounts. The problem starts when the passenger holding membership of one airline in the family flies on a ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ airline. Despite posting information profusely on their individual websites that a frequent flyer or traveller on any of the member airlines could accrue mileage when one travels on any of the group’s members, some of the airlines would not credit a passenger’s account.
They would keep shifting responsibility any time a passenger makes a complaint about mileage not credited.
For instance, it appears it is only South African Airways which would easily credit a passenger holding membership of another airline. Lufthansa and United Airlines would not! Lufthansa would always refer the passenger to, for instance, Ethiopian Airlines if that is the airline whose membership card the passenger holds. And when the passenger calls Ethiopian, that airline would also send the passenger back to Lufthansa.
It is hard for passengers to understand this kind of behaviour. Meanwhile, these airlines insist a passenger already on the frequent traveller membership of one group member only needs that membership, insisting there is no need to hold membership of more than one group member, but everything is working contrary to their claims.
Lufthansa and United Airlines won’t credit miles to members of the Ethiopian Airlines programme, claiming the passenger must see Ethiopian Airlines!
If this is not deceit and mistreatment of passengers, then I don’t know what it is.
Star Alliance must come clean on this marriage of inconvenience before some passengers start considering legal action, because this is unacceptable in a civilised world!
By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi