Customer service fail?

It's only fair to begin by stating that AAdvantage has been very, very good to me. Not only do I owe three vacations to them, but any combination of two of those vacations cost me fewer miles than my one trip to Europe using United miles. That's right: Ecuador+Japan (two round trips) on American cost me the same amount of miles as the one trip to Budapest and from Prague on United.

It's because AAdvantage miles are so valuable that I prefer that mine do not expire in November. To keep that from happening, I purchased Bose noiseblockers through the AAdvantage site. I was thinking about getting them anyway, but the expiring miles were added motivation. It should also be noted that this cost me more than I would have paid had I gone through Bose directly, since I had to pay for shipping and lost out on some other freebie (that I didn't particularly care about anyway, but I'm just saying).

I was slightly concerned when I didn't see any reference to AAdvantage on my Bose receipt, so I called AAdvantage. They directed me to their e-shopping number, but also suggested I wait six-eight weeks to let the miles do their thing. So I did. Then, I got distracted by other matters, such as getting my wisdom teeth pulled (and attempting to get fully reimbursed by my insurance; this effort appears to be bearing fruit this week). And traveling for work. And being really, really busy at work, and so not being able to follow up during business hours.

So I e-mailed the shopping people with the details of my order. I mentioned that my existing miles would be expiring soon, so I was interested in resolving this quickly. I provided the order number, order date, etc. And then I got an e-mail from Jesus in customer service:

We are sorry to hear that you are experiencing difficulties. After reviewing our records, we are unable to locate an AAdvantage eShopping account for you.

Well, that doesn't answer my question, does it, Jesus? First of all, when I placed my order--through a link on AAdvantage's site--there was nothing about having to have an eShopping account in order to get mileage credit. Second, I once worked in customer service, and I learned in training that the reason it's called customer service is that you resolve the customer's issue. You do not, emphatically, tell the customer that she's not your problem. Ideally, you do the calling/asking around and figure out what the issue is. I understand how that's not feasible in bigger companies with looser affiliations. Nonetheless, customers don't appreciate not being given helpful information. Register for an eShopping account (which, by the way, I've twice tried to do, from different computers, only to get error messages both time) and then what? Then I'll get my mileage credit? Or am I out of luck anyway?

Here's why customer service matters, my friends: had I gotten some kind of useful information, even "sorry, you're out of luck; take yourself to Chicago for a day if you want to keep your miles," I probably would have just called AAdvantage at the next opportunity. But I was essentially told to bugger off, which hurt my feelings, so I took to Twitter.

To their credit, AAdvantage has been responsive and is apparently working on my issue.