Disregard

In 2009 I did a fair amount of travel between Seattle and San Francisco on Virgin America’s sexy Airbuses. When I reached elite status on Alaska Airlines, though, they started upgrading me to first class. Add a season spent in Europe followed by a reduced travel schedule, and I haven’t flown Virgin for some time.

Last month I thought I might, again (for itinerary convenience) and visited TripIt to see if I had enough miles for an award flight, and saw I had 0 after a recent “Points expired by point expiration process.”

I thought it odd I’d not been warned via email about this, which led to this exchange on Twitter:

• @gerwitz: @VirginAmerica really? You expired my miles without any warning reminders?

• @VirginAmerica: @gerwitz Would you mind following back so I can get more info? Thanks!

• @VirginAmerica: d gerwitz Would you mind sharing your Elevate # so I can look into what happened here. Thanks!

• @gerwitz: d VirginAmerica 73254033920 … The expiration is likely legit (I was in Europe so domestic flights became rare) but the no warning is egregious.

• @VirginAmerica: d gerwitz Would you mind sharing your email address so we can check if a notification was sent? Thanks

• @VirginAmerica: d gerwitz Disregard last message. We found your account & seeing that a points expiration email was sent on 11/10/2010 but was not opened.

It’s lovely how social media allows brands to add a personal touch.