By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter
Wi, a pharmacy owner in Yongin, south of Seoul, has always purchased medical supplies with his Citi Asiana Club Mastercard so he can accumulate bonus miles on Asiana Airline's frequent flier program. But when he tried to book tickets to Phuket by redeeming the points last week, he found there was no way to get two roundtrip seats, not only for the upcoming Chuseok holidays, but for the rest of the year.
``It's frustrating when you have more than 200,000 miles in your account and they don't let you spend it. I hope they will do something to fix the program,'' he said.
The pharmacist is not alone in protesting the stingy seat policies of airliners on their frequent flyer programs. More than 3,500 have signed up for an online petition at Daum portal site since July 24. They demanded that the two South Korean airliners _ Asiana and Korean Air _ cash back their bonus miles if they cannot guarantee enough tickets.
Asiana said that it has acknowledged the problem of high demand and limited supply, and is trying to solve it by encouraging customers to redeem their points in various other ways, such as using airport lounges or lodging in a partner hotel.
``There was a sudden spurt in consumers' demand for the tickets. It is particularly difficult to get a these tickets because it's the summer holiday season,'' said Asiana spokeswoman Lee Cha-youn. ``Almost all departments are laboring to think about new ideas,'' she said.
The frequent flyer program is a service offered by many airlines to retain loyal customers by giving them bonus tickets corresponding to distances flown. Asiana and Korean Air redeem 40,000 points (miles) for a roundtrip ticket to Southeast Asia and 70,000 points for further destinations such as New York and London. The price goes up by 50 percent during holiday seasons.
The program has become overheated over the past few years as too many people have too many miles, causing intense competition for a limited number of seats.
Recent criticisms are mostly aimed at Asiana.
The firm has forged joint marketing programs with dozens of firms and services, allowing customers to earn miles in various ways. Its partners include 15 credit cards, 50 hotel chains, four banks, three car rental services, one department store chain, one gas station chain, one international telephone service and one flower delivery shop.
A big surge in the number of frequent flier program members was from a joint program with LG Telecom. The firm awards 10 to 17 miles to its customers for every 1,000 won of mobile phone calls. More than 900,000 people have signed up for the program since last November, according to LG Telecom.
Such popularity resulted in a ticket drought. When The Korea Times tried to book a ticket to New York on Asiana's Web site on Friday, there was no available reward seat for 2007.
The earliest flight available was on January 13, 2008 on business class and on March 16, 2008 for economy class. In any case, there were no more than four economy class seats open for the reward tickets on each flight.
Officially, the company says it allocates about 10 percent of the total seats to the frequent flier program.
Korean Air, Asiana's main rival, is more laid-back on the issue. More than 90 percent of its flights have seats available for reward tickets as the firm has operated the program more conservatively than Asiana, a spokesman said.
The unused points are a heavy financial burden for the companies themselves, too. The points represent potential non-revenue travelers on their books, so they must be carried forward on balance sheets as an outstanding contractual debt for an indeterminate time.
At Asiana, the debt from the unused miles has tripled from 17.2 billion won to 55.1 billion won between 2003 to the first quarter of 2007. Korean Air also saw an increase from 77.3 billion won to 169.9 billion won during the period.
Having faced the same problem for years, major airliners in Europe and North America have introduced new initiatives. For example, Lufthansa and American Airlines allow members to book even the very last available seat by using double the number of award miles. Also, Lufthansa offers a discount on the bonus points to those who book last-minute so they can fill up unpopular flights with reward tickets.
The two South Korean airlines said that they have no immediate plans to adopt similar measures in the near future, let alone cash out. As a result online petitioners at the Daum portal site are planning to file an official appeal with the Ministry of Construction and Transportation later this month.