airline miles

One of my newest pastimes involves doing everything short of murder to receive airline miles. I just found out that you can receive retroactive credit for flights taken within the last year (what?? An airline doing something magnanimous??), and since I recently unearthed my MileagePlus number, it’s like payday. I’ve racked up points from two transatlantic flights and I’m 2/3 of the way to receiving a round-trip ticket to Europe! 

I was recently on the phone with United to see if my flight from Spain to Germany in June would count. Sometimes customer service representatives make you want to tear out your own eyeballs so you have something to plug your ears with. But Suzy from Denver made me feel so valued. With every request for information she would thank me profusely. I told her my username and heard, “Ok ma’am, thank you so much for providing that.” With my pin number: “Thanks so much again for that information, ma’am.” When I supplied my old flight numbers I thought she was going to propose over the phone. 

Normally I roll my eyes at such flowery treatment. It can make me feel uncomfortably superior—after all, why is she thanking me when she is essentially giving me a free ticket? It should be the other way around. But Suzy can say whatever she wants, however she wants, if she helps me to reach those 60,000 miles.