American Airlines Fortune Cookie Promotion Revisited

Back on April 8, 2011, I wrote about a special American Airlines promotion to earn miles randomly through a “fortune cookie” promotion in my thread American Airlines Fortune Cookie Promotion (LAX)(Free Miles). In that post I highlighted how you could earn miles by repeatedly trying with varied email addresses and promo codes. It literally took me 100+ tries, but we eventually won a total of 1,900 miles across all four of our accounts. I should have trusted my gut on whether we would actually receive the miles or not.

Here it was July, and none of the miles posted to any of our accounts. So I emailed American Airlines, and luckily I wrote down all of the confirmation numbers. After several days, and a confusion, we finally received our missing miles.

While I realize most people had to trick the system to qualify for the miles, I am always extremely disappointed in these companies that do not follow through with their promotions. On top of it, it seems to be happening more and more lately. Luckily, I try and keep pretty good notes, and copies of all my records to keep track of them whether it be rebate forms or earning free miles. These companies though should automatically be giving customers what they earned if they met all the requirements of the promotion.

It just really frustrates me that I need to follow through to get a company to comply with their promotions. The same thing just happened with United Airlines last month. My wife was offered 1,000 miles for signing up for emails. She did it and 8 months went by, with multiple contacts to United, and the miles finally showed up last month. Really? Why did I need to hound them to get the miles my wife qualified for, but United failed to deliver?

I realize it’s only (fill in the blank) miles, but come on companies! Get your acts together and start treating your customers with some respect.

The lesson to be learned here is make sure you too keep good notes. I highly recommend taking screen shots for online promotions as well. You never know when you are going to need to be diligent with these companies to have your accounts properly credited.