I recently signed up for an airmiles credit card – you know the type: you buy things and for every pound you spend, you get a mile or so back.
How many miles do I have? And where can I fly to with my miles? A fairly common task you might argue? And therefore, fairly easy to do? Not so.
I fell at the first hurdle – logging in to my account. You can enter either your email address or your membership number. I had never received a membership number, and as I had never been to the site before I didn’t think they would have a record of my email address.
I tried my email address anyway, as I had applied for the credit card online and had used my email address on the application. It didn’t work.
I sent a message to my credit card provider via their online messaging system to request my membership number. When I have used online messaging systems previously (e.g. on www.ebay.co.uk) I have received a message in my email inbox when my message has been replied to. Not here. I had to keep logging back into my credit card account to check for new messages. They were not quick with their replies either – it took a good 4-5 days before I got a reply.
But, I digress. I just want to find out how many miles I have, and where they can take me. In fact, I’d be pretty happy right now if I could just log in to my account.
Back to my airmiles provider. I now had a membership number, which I typed into the ‘Membership number/email address’ box. I tried one of my passwords (yes, yes, I know I should have unique passwords for every account… but seriously?) and was presented with the ‘Forgotten your password?’ page, with a message highlighted in pink “You do not have an email address registered to your account, please contact us via one of the email addresses above detailing your membership number so we can resolve this.” BUT THERE IS NO EMAIL ADDRESS ON THIS PAGE!!! And why do I have to email you to register an email address? Why can’t I just validate it online?
So, I’ve hit a dead end. I can’t log in to my account. And how do I find out what email address I should use to register my email address? After a few clicks, I end up back on the login page, and notice a ‘I don’t have a password’ link. Clicking on this and I finally see some email addresses. Yes, multiple email addresses. Just give me one email address. Don’t make me think about which one is correct.
More than 7 days later I have still not received a reply from my chosen airmiles company. Perhaps these credit cards aren’t so beneficial after all. But it isn’t the credit card provider’s fault – they provide me with an airmiles balance. I just can’t find out what I can do with these, or how I use them. Or log in to my account to see that they are actually being recorded in the proper place.
