Save those Stubs!

I have some sage advice for travelers. Don't ever toss out your airline boarding stubs, especially if you're flying Delta or any of Delta airlines partners. Save those stubs like you would tax returns, at least for 6 years.

After returning from Tunisia, I noticed that my Delta Sky Miles account wasn't properly credited for the flight home. This eluded me because I properly handed the Sky Miles card to the airline agent while in Tunis and watched him type in the numbers and then hand the card back to me along with an airline ticket.

When I returned home, I tossed the ticket stubs in the garbage. I didn't need them anymore.

But, alas, the Tunis agent must have punched in the incorrect numbers because the transaction never made it to my Sky Miles account.

I'm currently battling corporate to rightly give me the miles but they refuse to budge without that small, torn-up piece of white paper. It's as if they treat a ticket stub with more importance that a passport or luggage.

But, here's the part that really makes my blood boil. Corporate can see from their computer records that I boarded both flights. Proof of my traveling from Tunis to JFK with a connecting flight in Paris on January 1, 2010, is easily retrievable from their extensive passenger data-banks. They don't dispute that.

Their claim is that their "policy" makes "no exceptions" for errors on their part.

In conclusion, this too is another in a series of expensive lessons learned - this one costing the equivalent of approximately $425 worth of free travel. Ouch.