Questions and Answers

I am having what I regard as a great pain dealing with a couple of Airline FF plans.

Specifically these have been Latam, Avianca and AeroMexico. I have begun flying much more in Latin America. Well, in all three cases I have no idea what my number is or the pin. It has been a while since I have focused on the region.

Both Avianca and AeroMexico are DEMANDING (none too graciously, I might add), that I provide them with great amounts of information including birthdate, passport number, and so on. Both of these two airlines have also demanded a color hard copy of my passport including front, back and title (information) pages. AeroMexico has no access to their FF plan except via their own number.

At the same time I have become more and more reluctant to spread around personal data. In Latin America it has become more difficult to use a credit card because businesses themselves are reluctant to accept the responsibility of keeping information confidential. In Mexico many banks actually block American Express cards because they cannot get the same shared income.

Before anyone reassures me how “safe” it is, I have worked in medical settings in the US and have seen how cavalierly private insurance information — often quite personal — was treated. Tons of personal information is lying around all over offices; address lists were unprotected.

It is one thing to write confirming basic data, quite another to provide large amounts that is extra or entirely un-necessary.

Does anyone have any advice on how to handle these problems, especially how to respond to Avianca and AeroMexico?