[cheated by etihad]

Etihad Airways – false promises about promotional offer!!!!!

I am a member of the Etihad frequent flyer programme. Etihad recently advertised a double air miles promotional offer with their partner airline, Srilankan Airlines. As per this offer, Etihad guests will be awarded double Etihad guest miles for travelling in Srilankan Airlines between Mar14 and may14 2011.

Even though I am not a big fan of Srilankan Airlines, I decided to travel from LHR to TRV in Srilankan air to avail this special offer. I checked with Etihad customer services whether this would qualify me to earn the promotional miles and they said all I need to do was to keep copies of the boarding cards to email guest services after the travel to claim the miles.

After the journey, I emailed Etihad guest services at guest@etihadguest.com for the missing miles claim. After about 2 weeks I received an email from etihad guest services to say that my claim was rejected as the flights did not qualify for earning etihad guest miles(even though it clearly says on their website that my flights were eligible for the claim). I emailed them back with the web link to their website which advertises this offer. I contested their decision and asked for more clarification. I never heard back from them for 2 weeks and decided to call the guest services contact centre. I was told that the only way to reach the claims dept is by email and that contact centre cannot help. This was after being on hold for 35 mins on the phone to get through to them. Reluctantly, they gave me an Abu Dhabi number to contact the claims team. When I contacted them, I got the same response that the claims team cannot be contacted through phone blah blah blah….

Finally, I got an email from them saying that the booking class I travelled in was not eligible for this particular offer and the email went on to say which booking classes were eligible. I was sure that this was an invalid excuse as my husband who travelled with me had his claim approved and we both travelled on the same class (o class).So, I contacted srilankan airlines to find out my class of travel and they confirmed to me that my ticked was issued in economy “O” class. To my amazement, I noticed that as per the previous email from etihad guest services O class tickets are actually eligible for this offer.

So, I shooted another email to reconsider my claim and double check my ticket details before rejecting the claim outright. As usual - no acknowledgement or response from them. Emailed them a few times to follow up as I felt that I was cheated into flying with a substandard airline with the promise of air miles rewards which were never going to materialise.

Had an email back today to say the claim has been rejected. No reason given. I am sure they haven’t looked at my claim properly. Because if they had, they would find that I travelled in an eligible class for claiming the air miles. That is 23644 miles down the drain! Promise not to fly etihad again. Shambolic airline !! Lures customers with fake promises!!!!