Miles to go

Miles to go

Regretfully, I would like to make a complaint against Etihad Airways. They caused the expiry of 96,000 high-value miles, worth thousands of dirhams, without proper notification. I am an Etihad Guest member and have been so for a very long period of time. I earned these miles with my family.

Etihad had sent me some account statements, indicating the miles would expire in the next few months, but these emails were falling in the “Promotions” category of my email. I don’t mind the expiry of a few thousand miles, but the sudden expiry of 96,000 miles in one go without any proper notification is not justifiable.

Further, they also downgraded my membership level from Silver to Basic without informing me and if I had that status, I could still use my miles.

I request Gulf News to intervene and help me get my miles back with a grace period for usage.

From Mr Rizwan Ahmad

Dubai

The management of Etihad Airways responds:

Etihad Airways thanks Gulf News for sharing Mr Ahmad’s letter with us.

We have investigated Mr Ahmad’s concerns and can confirm that Etihad Guest has fulfilled its obligations by sending regular monthly e-statements, which carry notifications about expiring miles, to Mr Ahmad’s email account that he provided when he signed up to our loyalty programme. We have a record of all e-statements that were sent to Mr Ahmad and regret that he failed to read them.

Mr Ahmad has enjoyed a Silver Etihad Guest membership since February 28, 2014. However his membership was downgraded to Base in 2016 because he was unable to maintain his tier level in 2015. The downgrade is in accordance with our Etihad Guest membership policy, which requires any member to earn 20,000 Tier Miles or 15 Tier Segments annually from January 1 to December 31, to qualify for the Silver status for the subsequent year.

Mr Ahmad has agreed to these terms and conditions when he joined the programme and has also received notifications about the downgrade through the e-statements we sent to him every month.

In view of the above, we regret our inability to consent to Mr Ahmad’s request for recovery of his expired miles.

(Process initiation: September 19. Response from organisation: September 25. Process completion: September 26.)

Editor’s note: Do you have similar issues that you would like to raise with us? You can write to us at readers@gulfnews.com.