Confirmation Calls for Miles Spent
 

Is it standard practice to receive calls the (first working) day after you make reward bookings?

I made 3 short haul reward bookings over the weekend on DL and AF as paid prices were absolutely obscene, however I received 3 separate calls from "PLATINUM ELITE COST CONTROL" who had all my details and wanted to confirm that I had, indeed, booked the flights intentionally.

It happens every time I make a reward booking -- is this normal? And if I've already gone to the pain of 2FA log-in and multiple pages to confirm that I'm spending the points for a specific itinerary, is this step really necessary? And, why can't I confirm all 3 bookings at the same time -- why did 3 separate agents have to call me regarding 1 itinerary each ?

Mondays ...

No, it's not.

I've never once been contacted by phone (or by any other means) under such circumstances.

I suspect that this also means that the mileage prices were pretty "obscene", hence there may be an element of checking that someone hadn't raided your account here...

No, it isn't.

Another thought - are these bookings made for you, or for other named travellers?

Ironically, the DL flights were at 7500 points each whereas the paid rate was reaching $250 for a <1 hr flight -- which is why I jumped on them. Previously when I didn't pick up the phone, I've been e-mailed on previous itineraries saying that my booking was on hold until I confirmed that I had indeed made those bookings. Recently within the last 12 months this included a 48k J booking CGK-SYD on GA and NYC-CDG-CMN in Y for 19.5k miles.

The flights have always been for myself, with taxes for a card in my name, registered to the same address in my FB profile.

Utterly bizzare :confused:

Edit: My turn for a thought, could this be UAE-specific?

Or it's BA Humbug specific!!!

You must be on a watchlist! 😉

Different markets have different anti-fraud measures, as well as different service level standards (You could consider this confirmation as a positive service as well, being an extra layer of security). So yes, that would make a lot of sense if you are based in UAE.

Did your miles happen to come from CC spending?

If there is a change in fraud measures from just cancelling the booking to confirming via phone, it's certainly an improvement.

I understand that, but 3 separate phone calls back-to-back for the same person to verify different bookings is also somewhat excessive ...

I seem to vaguely recall tickets getting cancelled a few years ago, so perhaps you're right -- however all of the miles are from hotel stays / flights, so it is truly baffling to feel it could be flagged for fraud. I suspect they confirm all flight redemptions happening to UAE-registered accounts ...

I really don't think that is in any way feasible....that they would call back *everyone* registered in particular countries to reconfirm *every* Flying Blue redemption made. If that truly was what they wanted, then it would make more sense for them to suspend the ability to use the online tool and instead require all account holders in those countries to call in to make their bookings by talking to an agent.

We know that Flying Blue mistrusts accounts that never fly (have you ever earned any miles from flying? Have all your miles been transfers?)

It's far more likely that they are calling you because of the manner in which your miles were earned rather than because they call everyone making any kind of redemption with an account registered in a particular country. Maybe if you take just one XP-earning flight you'll find that this "problem" goes away

When you make 3 separate bookings, which lead to 3 separate e-ticket numbers being issued, it's not exactly feasible to expect there to be some system checking to see; hang on, this is from an account that we have to call, let's check to see if this account has made multiple bookings so we can put them on the one call....

If your bank or credit card noticed a suspicious transaction, presumably you wouldn't want them to wait 12 to 36 hours in case other suspicious transactions pop up in that timeframe, just so that both you, and the agent, have the "convenience" of only undergoing a single phone call for as many suspicious activities as can be collected in a certain period of time....

IMHO $250 for a short flight in the US isn't exactly excessive. Cash fares on short flights often cost the most relative to distance flown.

FB clearly thinks your account, for whatever reason, is high risk. I think getting back to back phone calls is better than having your account closed without notice, as we read about here from time to time.