Folks who participated in the US Airways holiday shopping bonus ot earn 250% bonus miles on all purchases for making qualifying transactions with five unique merchants have had a little bit of heartburn seeing that some merchants (like Sears and Omaha Steaks) have been posting to member accounts generically with the description “Dividend Miles Shopping Mall” rather than with their own names.

The concern has been that US Airways would treat such transactions as being from the same merchant rather than from unique merchants, causing members with insufficient other transactions to have perhaps four or fewer merchants counting towards the bonus, and ultimately receiving perhaps a 200% bonus rather than the full 250%.

US Airways assures me this concern is unfounded. Ultimately we’ll see what happens when bonuses post come March 1, but I’m reassured that at a minimum if this problem manifests itself in shorting members their bonuses, US Airways will respond properly and manually post the missing points.

I queried them about the generic posting of merchants, and this was their reply:

We have reviewed xxxxx’s Dividend Miles account regarding the Big Bonus Promotion. Although some of the purchases with the Dividend Miles Shopping Mall have posted with a generic code that does not include the merchant name, there is a separate code attached behind the scenes that designates each individual merchant. This is the information that will be used to post the bonus miles. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Much reassuring, US Airways, thanks!

Now waiting with baited breath until March 1, when the millions of bonus miles are scheduled to start rolling in….