Sunday, August 23, 2009

Saving Ticket Stubs

Because of an inconvenience I suffered last year while traveling, I was awarded a $50 voucher from a major airline. Instead of it being a physical one, it was electronic but only able to be redeemed by calling the reservation number. For some reason, the 5 digit code I was given had letters that could be interpreted differently depending on how one looked at it. For example, while I thought the letter was a "5" it was actually an "S."

When I called to redeem the code, the agent couldn't locate this code but instead asked if I had my ticket stub still, with my ticket number on it. I didn't as it was a year ago. To make matter's worse, the number given to my fiance for the same problem was totally incorrect, or yet again another case of a multiple interpretation of a letter provided in an email because of the font. Again, the same question was: do you have a ticket number?

Eventually, a helpful agent, other than three I spoke with, was able to locate the codes via a lot of manual searching and my old itinerary I had. But, I could have saved a lot of time and headache had I just kept the original ticket stubs knowing that I had a problem with the airline's customer service which demanded a follow up anyway.

The take away (for airlines, etc.) keep your ticket stub until 1) all mileage in a Frequent Flyer account is posted; 2) any post travel difficulties that need to be cleared up--are.

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