Question
As an AAdvantage Platiunm member I thought I'd try to earn some more miles by applying for a Citibank Platinum Select Mastercard last week. The offer would give the member 12.5K (non-elite qualifying) AA miles after the cardmember makes his first purchase plus the usual $1=1 mile deal. The card carries an $85 annual fee.
This morning I get an e-mail from AAdvantage with a better Citbank offer
"Dear AAdvantage Platinum member....sign up for the Citibank Platinum World Mastercard, blah blah blah, we will give you 1 mile per dollar spent,"15K" bonus miles, but heres the kicker, 5000 of the 15K miles will count toward Elite Qualification miles for 2006!
I immediately called AAdvantage Customer Service, who could not help but transferred me to Citicard Customer Service. The Citi-Card agent, although sympathetic,didn't think I could switch deals but spoke with a supervisor who she brought on the line. My desparate pleads to the supervisor, which included a mild suggestion of closing my account, brought me a lousy extra 3K miles as a "good gesture" giving me 15.5K miles. I asked if he could make 5K of those miles to be elite qualifing miles. He didnt know what that meant, but suggested I contact American to sort that out. He also wouldn't budge on the annual fee.
This is so unfair. I applied 9 days ago before the new promotion (which inlcludes giving my AAdvantage number at the time application) Receive a better promotion for the exact same card in my personal e-mail. (not spam or through hearsay) I respond to the offer,and I'm told I can't have it because I now have the card.
Does anyone think I have any further recouse or should I just take what I have and just shut up.?
Bicoastal.
Answer
I have tried a couple of times in the past to change promo's once I applied for something and was always unsuccessful.
Answer
How many times one bought a ticket and only found out, sometimes, less than a day, that fare dropped ?
Happened in Cruise industry everyday ...
I am actually surprised that you apply for the $85 fee card when the NO Annual Fee promo was put on aa.com for at least several weeks ...
Answer
Apply for both. I did that with UAL after I saw the second one offered more miles. I got the second one instantly and yesterday got an email saying to expect the new card soon.
Answer
Try Planetfeedback.com - it worked for me when I had a problem no one could solve - got a reply from the head offices within a couple of days...
Answer
Citibank has always been sticklers for promotion codes in my experience. If they have a code in, there is no way to change to code. However, I would try to apply for the better offer also. If they have 2 applications, I believe they may call you to find out if you did both or what the deal is, in which case you can choose to decline the worse offer application and keep the better one. But you'd need to do that soon.
The same thing happened to my husband, but it was the day after he mailed in a Delta AMEX application (not Citi). He applied for the 2nd (better) offer right away and got a call from AMEX later in which he said he wanted to keep the better offer. But it did take some calling after he got the card to get the terms of the better offer --- but since he had the correct code in and all the original paperwork, it wasn't a problem.