I wanted to tell you about the issue I'm facing with US Airways' dividend miles program, which is part of the larger Star Alliance miles program that includes other partners such as Lufthansa, Air Canada, Turkish Air...etc.

This March, I saw a news article that mentioned an offer on US Airways' website, where if you bought miles on their program, you would get a 100% increase on the miles after satisfying certain conditions. I called to verify that I could use them for upgrades on other partners such as Lufthansa. Based on their confirmation that I could use them for upgrades on Lufthansa, I purchased $2, 700 worth of miles.

This week, I tried to redeem those miles by trying to purchase an award flight to Saudi Arabia either on Lufthansa or Turkish Airlines. After staying on the phone for 4-5 hours, no seats could be found for up to 90 days in the summer because of the limited availability of mileage class seats. I understood that this could have been due to the summer increase in demand and I also understood that there were no guarantees on the availability of seats.

However, then I decided that I would purchase the tickets on Lufthansa and then use the US Airways miles for an upgrade since it was a partner. So, then they tell me that they cannot check the availability of mileage upgrade seats on other partners and that I would first have to purchase the ticket on the other partner and then request through US airways on the CHANCE that there MIGHT be availability. This is what got to me.

So, the miles that I had were practically worthless because I could not use them to get award miles for the trips that I wanted for the foreseeable future I would also have to GAMBLE in case I wanted an upgrade on the other partner but part of the same Star Alliance point program. There was no way for me to go online to find mileage class availability.

After going through four agents, one of whom told me that she was only authorized to check a seven day window for availability, I talked to customer service to complain. While I was calm, the service rep started raising her voice at me, saying that they DID NOT FORCE me to purchase the miles. She also insinuated that I was just trying to get my money back while in reality I was trying to get the benefit of the miles I purchased.

Broken down, these are the problems that I see here:
- This program sells miles, with so many restrictions, that they are impossible to derive any benefit out of.

- It is unclear, but it may be that they are flooding the market with miles, but at the same time not providing the airline seats to use those miles.

- I understand that they don't guarantee upgrades, but the same time there is no mechanism for someone who purchased miles to use them for an upgrade without gambling by purchasing the economy ticket first.

I hope this long-winded email was not just a waste of your time and that I am not just complaining for being a sucker and not reading the terms and conditions more carefully. However, I would like to think that this leading-down-the-garden-path as I see it, if not illegal, is at least unethical practice.

Thank you for your time and consideration