Because of the work I do, I typically get to fly around the county four or five times a year. For a while, I was accumulating FF miles regularly and easily as the local travel folks were putting my frequent flier number in when they scheduled my flights so the miles just kept racking up. Then we changed how we did travel and since I wasn’t paying good enough attention, I didn’t notice that my NWA FF number was no longer being used.
Realizing this now, I tried to determine how I could get retroactive credit for my miles. This is a piece of cake, actually, except for one aspect. You must have your e-ticket number, which is evidently only on the ticket or the baggage receipt. I was able to find several of these and the miles showed up a couple days after being entered into the “mileage credit request” form on the website.
Now, you would think that I would be able to view my entire flight history on NWA and grab e-ticket numbers from flights that I have been on through their website. It is hard for me to imagine that NWA wouldn’t be data mining the crappola out of this type of info and have it for some long periods of time, even a year. The unfortunate truth appears to be that you can’t. So I have two trips I went on this year that I can’t claim credit for because I don’t have the e-ticket number. I realize this is partly my fault, but it would be nice if NWA could show past flights as well as ones that you have reservations for.
Moral of the story – enter your FF number into the NWA website before you even go to the airport or email yourself the e-ticket number in case you lose your stub.
–Nat