Mabuhay Miles is the frequent flyer program of the Philippine Air Line (PAL). Aside from flying, one can earn miles by patronizing the services of Mabuhay Miles partners, such as hotels, resorts, rent-a-cars, and credit cards. By the way, tickets purchased under promos are not eligible to earn miles.
I’ve been a member of this program since 2003. I’d already earned a number of miles, which we used for our Cebu / Bohol family vacation three years ago. In 2006, my membership was upgraded to “Elite”. Unfortunately, I had lesser number of trips in 2007; and my membership has been downgraded to “Base” this year. As of to date, I’ve accumulated a good number of miles. However, some of the miles will expire this quarter. Earned miles are good for three years only.
So, I planned of having a family vacation again next month before the miles expired. I called up the Mabuhay Miles Service Center and inquired how would I pay for the taxes and charges. “P4,004 (or $89) per round trip ticket”, the agent told me. WHAATTTTTT? Are you kidding or are you robbing me?
I told the agent the last time I redeemed my Mabuhay Miles I paid about P1,600 only; and, how come the taxes and charges are higher that their current regular fare. The agent explained that the increase was primarily due to higher cost of aviation fuel. Then, she courteously advised me to look for their current promos than to redeem my earned miles. Fine! But, what about my accumulated miles, particularly the expiring miles? They are now USELESS and so is the Mabuhay Miles. One of the reasons I use PAL is the Mabuhay Miles. I think I would now consider its competitors.
True, suddenly it was all changed. The company I use to work on usually books our airline ticket from Cathay Pacific from Florida-LA-Manila round trip (imagine), Cathay has a very good service compare to PAL including non-stop food service.. After we have learned about PAL miles benefits we have requested to our company to get a ticket from PAL instead of the usual Cathay so we could start earning miles and use it afterward for free flights and use their amenities (lounges, etc) but now that it’s all been all been changed that all discounted/promos PAL tickets/flights cannot earn miles (that sucks).. Hundreds of Filipino that I work with on the same company will probably go back to Cathay since PAL miles will be useless to us (OFW), I hope PAL will soon realize that it was not a good idea
Posted by Rodenskie at March 16, 2009, 12:18 amI have around 16k miles expriring on March 30. I wanted to redeem it and use it for my family’s vacation to Cebu. Alas, i have to pay 17,220pesos for fuel surcharge for 5 pax. If i buy a regular ticket on the same date, it will only cost me 17,150pesos or even cheaper by 70 pesos. Susme..What is the game plan of PAL here? To me its clear, it does not pay to be loyal to PAL anymore. Lucio Tan’s way of improving PAL’s bottomline at the expense of quality and comfort of its loyal customers. Pure commercialism, pera-pera pa rin..
Posted by Mon A at March 25, 2009, 1:28 pmAll comments are moderated. Your comments will not appear here unless approved by the blog owner. Thank you.
Hi, I'm Tom . . .
Think of me as TALL and HANDSOME, when it's DARK.
This blog is about me, my activities and experiences, and my other interests - cars, driving, blogging, technology, my sports, etc.
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I soo agree with what you wrote as I also had the same encounter. I have a significant number of accumulated points from last year and they are all worthless. Moral of the story, let’s not fly PAL anymore and let’s cancel our Mabuhay Miles membership.
Posted by Sharon at November 17, 2008, 8:54 pm