I have had a frequent flier account with Northwest since my first trip with them in 1992. I was on a trip with a school group, and the group leader--a really savvy traveler--introduced me to the magical world of frequent flier miles. Although the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan is, in my opinion, the best frequent flier program available, I have a reasonably large mileage balance in my WorldPerks account. So I decided to redeem some of my miles for a free ticket to Alaska.

Northwest Airlines allows you to book a WorldPerks award trip online. When I booked my trip, they were running a pretty attractive promotion. If you joined the "nwa.com Club" and paid the $35 "membership fee," you could book an award trip online for only 19,000 miles (a substantial discount from the 25,000 miles that are normally required). Considering that WorldPerks miles are worth around 1.5¢ each, this amounted to about a $90 value. So after carefully reviewing the Terms and Conditions, I joined, and then proceeded to book my trip.

Well, at least I tried. Unfortunately, the Web site didn't work. No matter what I did, I couldn't get the promotion to work in combination with the flights I wanted--I just got variable error messages, depending on how I attempted to input the data. The telephone was no help; their customer service center was closed. So I gave up, and called Northwest the next day.

The agent I reached was unfriendly and unhelpful, which is not unusual in my experience with Northwest (everyone working there seems to really hate their job), but she was also unreasonable. "You have to book 7 days in advance on the Web site," she said. "The Web site wasn't working yesterday, which would have been 7 days in advance" I replied. "Sorry, you have to book 7 days in advance on the Web site. This was in the Terms and Conditions you agreed to when you joined the Club." We went around and around on this a few times; eventually, I extracted more information. It would seem as though after renewing a nwa.com Club membership, it takes 24 hours for the renewal flag to propagate from the Web front-end to the WorldPerks customer database. This is why I was unable to make my reservation--and, as far as the Northwest agent was concerned, it was not her problem. "This is in the Terms and Conditions you agreed to when you joined," she kept repeating, although my reading of the Terms and Conditions didn't reveal this clause, or anything like it.

Not getting anywhere with the spectacularly unhelpful Northwest agent, I figured I'd just book the trip anyway, and take my chances writing to Northwest WorldPerks with a copy of their own nwa.com Club Terms and Conditions enclosed, requesting that they either honor the promotion or refund my membership fee. Usually, airlines are pretty good about fixing problems that are obviously their fault, especially when you put the request in writing. So I proceeded to make my booking, naively thinking I'd have no further trouble.

Northwest and Alaska Airlines have operated code-share flights together since 1995. In 1998, Northwest established a code-share agreement with Continental. Electronic tickets aren't a new thing to either Northwest or Alaska Airlines; after all, in 1995, Alaska was the world's first airline to sell tickets via their Web site.

All of this may lead you to wonder why, in the year 2002, a paper ticket is required for travel on Alaska Airlines booked using WorldPerks miles. While you can book an award itinerary including travel on Alaska Airlines via the Northwest Airlines Web site, you can't travel Alaska Airlines on an electronic ticket. Instead, unless you book at least 10 days in advance, you have to physically visit a Northwest city ticket office, pay a $50 fee on top of the $18.75 in taxes, and be issued a paper ticket. Remember those? They're the kind of ticket where you actually have to stand in line, check in, and have the agent stamp, staple, and tear it. The kind of ticket you can actually lose, and it means something. To add insult to injury, the Web booking bonus doesn't apply, either, requiring a full 25,000 miles to redeem the award. Of course, I learned this only after I'd already selected my flights and input my credit card number, only to be rebuffed by a confusing error message indicating that my booking was too close to the travel date. I had to call Northwest to learn what the error message meant--after all, if the booking was too close to the date, why did the Web site allow me to select the flights?

As it turns out, Continental has one flight a day from Seattle to Anchorage. The flight times were absolutely rotten compared to the Alaska schedules, but Northwest could, unlike with Alaska Airlines, manage to issue an electronic ticket for that flight. So, after 2 days, over 3 hours of my time, 4 phone calls, and a letter (written on actual paper, and sent in the mail in an envelope--I don't remember the last time I used snail mail for anything other than paying bills) to Northwest Airlines, I'm finally on my way to Anchorage.

It shouldn't be this way. I consider it ridiculous that Northwest apparently can't communicate more frequently than every 24 hours with their WorldPerks database from their Web front-end. I consider it even more ridiculous that Northwest can't issue an electronic ticket on an airline with whom it has operated hundreds of code-share flights since 1995.  Finally, and, most ridiculous of all, Northwest apparently solves the problem by blaming their customers instead of fixing their databases.

Oh well. At least the tickets were "free," meaning $18.75 in taxes and "security fees." And hopefully Northwest will honor the promotion I signed up for, which is what they should have done in the first place.

Epilogue

Northwest Airlines wrote back, and reiterated their position: Get lost! There were no exceptions, and they made no apologies. This definitely isn't what I expected, but it seems airlines are an increasingly customer-hostile industry. Lest you think this is an isolated incident, my experience is not unique. From Internet Travel Tips:

Their club allows two travelers to save on a future flight, waive the initiation fee for WorldClub membership, get extra frequent flyer miles, etc. for a year. Is it a good deal? The ticketing restrictions (revealed only after you enroll) are severe: black-out dates, 7 day advance reservations, Saturday night stay and limited availability. The specific savings per person (for 48 US States & Canada) are $25 off a fare of $175-299 (excluding taxes/fees), $50 off a fare of $300-499 and $75 off a fare of $500 or greater. There are similar savings for Europe, Africa and India. Read the fine print before you buy.

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