DEL AYED GR ATIFICATION

My family and I booked a return trip with All Nippon Airways (ANA) in Premium Economy class from Kuala Lumpur to Seattle. On our outward journey (2 July), our request to upgrade to business class using miles was accepted without any issue.

Prior to our return on NH 815 on 13 July, I made numerous calls to ANA requesting an upgrade for all four of us for the Tokyo-Kuala Lumpur leg, but we were told there were no seats.

When we checked in at Seattle, we made a similar request in person. They said they would have to send a message to Narita to check if seats were available for the second leg.

At Narita, we tried to go to the ANA lounge but were told that the upgrade could only be processed at the service desk. We then had to wait at the service desk for more than an hour while staff checked if there were business seats available for upgrade and asked us basic queries about whether we had enough miles for upgrade, etc. Obviously all our messages and details for upgrading were not communicated nor logged in to the system. To add insult to injury, we were paged twice on the PA system to report to the service desk when we were already there. This just shows the uncoordinated nature of the ANA staff at Narita.

It was at the last minute before boarding that the upgrade was processed and we had to rush to the boarding gate.

As a result of this, we were deprived of the use of the lounge (for which ANA charges 4,000 miles each), the opportunity to enjoy a shower after a ten-hour f light and some refreshments. We were also unable to make duty-free purchases as our passports were needed to process the upgrade, meaning I was not able to buy my favourite Yamazaki whisky at the duty-free shop in Narita, which costs at least 200 per cent more in Singapore.

ANA initially offered a compensation of 1,000 miles for each of us. I felt that this gesture did not reflect all the inconveniencies that we had incurred as a result of the inefficiencies and the poor service level of ANA.

I wrote to ANA again telling them that I thought the least the airline could do was to waive all the upgrade points for this sector to demonstrate their sincerity for all the problems that their staff had caused and the anxiety that my family had to endure.

ANA came back with an offer of 2,000 air miles for each of us. ANA seems adamant about this offer, which I think is grossly inadequate. Access to the lounge is already 4,000 miles per person, and besides that, we were stranded at the counter for over 90 minutes waiting for their staff to process our request. They have admitted their mistakes but they are not willing to offer us a better form of compensation. Tan Kok We, Hong Kong