Do you remember that game show Press Your Luck, where the contestant would yell, "No Whammies?" I was doubled whammied by both United Airlines and Visa-Chase Bank. [The Chase Bank story is the better one, so skip the United Airlines one if you really want to be outraged.]
So why didn't you just take the credit? Great question. Well the tickets were extremely expensive, the cost of 2.5 typical tickets. I didn't pay for them myself. And I had already bought tickets for June. Also, I'm a Gold, premier member who purchases tickets four tickets, three times a year. Why couldn't they just cut me a break because 1. it's the law that we couldn't fly and 2. did I mention I buy 12 tickets a year?
They charged us a total of $960 to cancel the tickets. I appealed the decision and am still waiting to hear back from them.
Which brings us to Chase Visa. This is one of those stories where I'm thankful that I am a rational person. I could see an irrational person not acting rationally after this.
After my trip to Chicago in December, I left my Chase Visa credit card there. I immediately called Chase Visa (Thank you for being a valued member, they always say.) to replace it. I've only needed to receive a new credit card or bank card in Israel a couple of times, and it's not a big deal. They send it UPS or DHL, whatever service they are using.
Okay, no big deal. These things happen. It's annoying because I only use this one card for the miles, but never mind, everyone is facing employee shortages, I can manage with my bank card.
I call back and we make sure that they have the correct address, that it's being sent UPS and that it will get here in 7-10 business days.
7 days pass and I call again. The representative speaks to me a bit too quickly and says it will be there Wednesday. She hangs up the phone. Wednesday passes and no card. (The card goes to my school where there are 24 hours guards there who also kindly take our packages).
I call again after 10 days and the representative on the phone says that my address was not filled out correctly and it was sent regular mail (on a boat). I laugh bitterly. However, this representative is correcting the mistake.
Ten days later I get my card.
But in the meantime, I had spent countless hours and aggravation (more than I wrote about here) on the phone with Chase and I felt I should receive some compensation. On the phone the representative and I came up 19,000 miles. This was based on tickets that I couldn't purchase on my Visa Card. She verified this with her supervisor. I asked her, what if my flight gets canceled? You still get the miles. What if I can rebook them on this card? You still get the miles. This was the agreed upon settlement. I had no reason to believe they would back out because these phone calls are recorded, as well all know.
Ok, great. I'm happy. No harm done, just hours of my life lost.
Then, a couple of weeks ago I noticed that the 19,000 miles never appeared on my United Miles. I called Chase Visa and a representative said, "We sent you a letter and you never responded to it." I asked her why she didn't use the secure mail feature on the app? She said that a great idea and they will try to do that next time. So I waited for the letter. Shockingly it came about a month later in the mail. It read, "Call us about a concern on your account." I called back and this very aggressive woman told me that a committee had found that I was not entitled to the miles because I didn't specify that the card should be sent UPS.
I told her at no point was I told that there was any question that I would be getting these miles. She said these things always go up for review. I said, even if I had been aware of that, I or the representative use the words UPS and express. She said that's not what the committee found. I asked her to have the committee review the case again. She basically hung up on me.
So, today I called back and talked to two nicer people. The supervisor was kinder but told me I will be getting no compensation. I asked that all my calls since January be pulled. He said he will do that, but all that will do is train employees to improve Chase Visa's customer service program and that in all honesty I'm never getting those 19,000 miles or any other kind of compensation.
Have you ever been promised compensation by a company and never received it? I'm at a loss. They have the phone calls where it was promised to me with no threat of investigation. I literally have no recourse except to cut up the credit card.
And what's interesting is that someone at that corporation said, "You promised her something; we don't want to give her, so make her understand that she doesn't deserve it and she's never getting it and we don't care if she's our customer anymore."
I know that this isn't a life or death situation. I do feel entitled to be treated in the following ways by these two companies:
- competently
- respectfully
- loyally (as I have been to them)
- honestly: if a promise is made to me, it shouldn't be broken, and gaslighting is never acceptable, even if a company policy has been broken.
