Domestic

New TSA Program Threatens Your Award Status

Welcome to Wing Tips, the new air travel blog from the publishers of First Class Flyer. You can read about this unique new publication here. In today's edition, we ask if points or miles are missing from your latest frequent flyer program statement. Because if they are, something called "Secure Flight" may be the culprit.

Those who work on new products or processes know about "the law of unintended consequences." It's the maxim that says that whatever is done sometimes has effects that simply weren't anticipated.

Frequent flyers around the nation are feeling the effects of this law as it applies to their mileage and elite points. That's because both these forms of rewards may no longer be properly credited to their accounts. The culprit could be the Transportation Security Administration's new Secure Flight Program.

Secure Flight was designed to shortcut the time-consuming need to check each traveler's identity at the airport against the TSA's watch list of terrorist suspects. Under the Secure Flight procedure, airlines send all passenger names to TSA, pre-flight. The agency then returns a list of those barred from travel. The program began in January, and is being phased in. By year-end, all airlines serving the U.S. will take part.

When announced, the new measure seemed simple and effective. But since then, those unintended consequences have entered the picture. Here's how:

Names sent to TSA must appear as they are on the passenger's government-issued IDs, often a driver's license or passport. The problem arises when the name on the passenger's award account does not precisely match that ID. That's a common situation, when passenger John or Jane Adams has registered for miles and points as J. Adams or some other variation. Passengers in this situation get where they're going, but their miles and points go missing.

The fix is for award program members to make sure their registration with the programs exactly matches their government-issued ID. But airline sources note that making sure is not as easy as it sounds. It could require faxing or mailing paper documents, and/or attempting to make a change several times before it sticks.

If you're a frequent flyer whose account name does not exactly match your ID, or if you're not sure that it does, the advice is to quickly get in touch with your carriers or travel agent and make the change -- before Secure Flight's unintended consequences become your own.