Steve
Mesa,#2Consumer Suggestion
Thu, October 28, 2010
It would not be a problem to set the system up the way that a discount or coupon is applied automatically when booking the flight like on any other website where there is a box that says "Apply Coupon" at the bottom. I have seen this hundreds of times - the customer can see that the coupon was applied and print it out at the end.
I am under the impression that HA's marketing strategy is "Give out something to the customer without honoring it so that he has to continue to make bookings"
This seems to be the case with coupons as well as with Hawaiian Miles: their favorite answer to customers who call because they try to apply these Miles is
"Sorry, nothing available but it is available if you use your credit card"
So the customer will give them his credit card number accrue additional miles and hope to be able to apply them the next time.
Steve
Mesa,#3Consumer Comment
Thu, August 19, 2010
I agree with you: What Hawaiian Airlines offers on their website is a scam and I am surprised that an airline is obviously able to commit false advertising without having to take responsibility for it.
This is what they are advertising on their website:
NEW ! Combined Dollar / Miles Flights
You can now book award flights by redeeming HawaiianMiles
for one way and paying for the other.
Just log in to your account then visit the booking tool and
select "Miles" in one direction and "Dollars" in the other
direction.
* Offering More Flexibility with Your Miles
* Making Award Travel Even easier to Reach
* Log in to your HawaiianMiles Account to view This Option
Note: there was no footnote, asterix or any kind of restriction mentioned.
After I had transferred about 40,000 points from my American Express account I tried to make use of this option and found out that each time when I switched one leg from Dollars to Miles, the other leg would switch as well. I called their CS and was told "Sorry for the inconvenience but this option only works on specific flights". Great - I transferred my Amex points which I could have used for something better like gift cards and now I am stuck with HawaiianMiles which are practically useless because upgrades are always "unavailable" or only available if I pay twice as many miles. Flight awards with their partner airlines are always unavailable, whenever I call (done this about 5 times, always the same answer...)