I went on the US Airways web site to use some of my frequent flier miles on a trip to Albuquerque 3 months from now. Although their brochure says you can get round trip flights for 25,000, the web site (without explanation) asked for double that. I read the fine print about blackout dates. I wasn’t asking for blacked out dates. It said things about restrictions on partner airlines. I changed cities and avoided partner airlines. Still, they wanted double miles. The fine print said something about the number of seats being limited and that they sold out early. Three months is pretty early, and I looked at dozens of flights. I even said I was flexible about dates. No dice.
So I wrote them. They said much of the same fine print stuff I mentioned above, but added a curious bit–that there might be more seats available closer to flight time. That is, I was invited to gamble. If I win, I get to use frequent flier miles for the trip; if I lose it will be so close to the flight date that the fares will have tripled.
I asked them for a list of available dates. They declined.
I hope they enjoyed making their customer stumble around like a blindfolded child playing pin the tail on the donkey. The customer did not enjoy it one bit.
I’ve never had problems like this with other airlines.