Question
AAA travel money card is avail on the AAA.com web site. I already have issues with AAA as a service, but now this...
I ordered one card using my Citi MC for AA miles. I charged up $1504.95 the other day in hopes to get 1504 AA miles and be able to reload this thing. You are able to reload it 3 times more and then later get a new one. My goal: buy it, get miles, cash it out (they give a pin) and reload. Grab a cool 6k AA miles for a total of about $4.95 plus whatever fees I assess in PIN charges to cash it out.
BUT the first issue is that you can only reload every 90 days with the same funding source. SO in order to reload earlier, I would have to either use a different CC or wait. You also cannot order a second card without either using a dif funding source or also waiting 90 days. In fact you cannot order anything from them unless unless...
And then the kicker...this really killed me today and so if anyone else is using their AA citi MC to get these things, be watchful and get on it right away...:
Happened to check my online bal this morning, 6 days after buying that AAA travelex Travel Funds card. It went thru to my CC as a cash advance!!
HUH?
I have something IN WRITING from citi acknowledging my own request from 2 months ago that my cash advance limit shall be $100. So this should have declined!!
It did not.
WHY?
HOW?
I was pissed off to the Nth degree. I called CS at Citi, and got to a supervisor who, after a long, long convo, did agree to reverse any and all finance charges and fees or interest this one time, providing I do my best to pay off the entire bal like right away, which I will do. And then I got in touch with a person in the president's office in the business division who assured me this would take place. This took some doing as that supervisor kept telling me that things that should be in the terms are not available to her or anyone else at citi. But I insisted telling her I needed to stop these problems right now and that I was at work and not in front of the copy of the terms that wouldhave been mailed to me. Nor did I believe they could even exist. The term of overriding cash advance limits cannot be a legitimate term, I told her, and so she caved. Then the Biz officer woman I spoke to seemd to understand more clearly what I was going through and how this could have happened. Her name was Dawn Hooker in the Pres. office. She said that she would move the charge to a purchase and stop the fees that way. She said the merchant did get declined on 1/19 but then they sent in the charge paperwork on 1/20 and this over rides my cash advance request! Something about rules and fine print between MC international and merchants whereas charges that are sent in by paper have to go thru!
I should have been notified! AA citi should have told me and the merchant certainly should have!
now I know there's some trickery afoot...
They had called because of something else (so they said at the time) but not this. You see, originally, I had tried to order one AAA card for $1500+ $4.95 fee and then tried to order a second one right away. (not a secondary one, but a totally different new one). I did these both in the morning of Thursday, Jan 20 using my AA citi mc. But I soon found out that this double-up action apparently declined both--or so it seemed. I discovered this when they called me and left a message, I called right back, and they explained the 90 thing and let the first one go thru. I was told that due to the time of day I ordered it, I should have had it shipped out already, and they say they take 2 biz days to get to you if ordered before 3pm EST. But since I had now been speaking with them to solve all of this AFTER 3pm, I would not get it in 2 days, rather, it would ship in 3 days, meaning it would not come on Fri, Jan 21, but rather, Monday the 24th. But then I got another call asking for me to contact them about my application for this card, and when I returned that call, the CS guy apologized for not having notes that I had already been in contact with them earlier and he put it thru and resent it. I now think these calls were ways for them to get me to approve the charge without even realizing the REAL reason for their calls! I had no idea. I had no idea about the intricate rule on overriding cash advance limits, nor could I have known. The Biz manager at AA citi today agreed that I would not have any idea of this sort of thing, and she told me I should tell the merchant that I was not happy with them. She also said she would put in a claim on my behalf to MC international on this merchant. Well, the card has been used by me--I received it and so I cannot dispute it in normal channels via my credit card company, and I had accepted the calls and charges from AAA when they called, but this is still pretty fishy...
neverthless, that AAA card came by fedx at no extra expense to me on Monday, Jan 24 and I cashed it out soon after.
I will never use them again but wanted to warn others NOT to use this card!
Let me know if anyone else ever had this occur. It sucked, but I think I got thru it. Citi said they would watch my account and remove any fees that could come up as a result of this from now til March statement. I was lucky but it cost me about 1 hr of my time and my boss aint happy. Fortunately, my typing of this message looks like real work because typing is normal in my office. I guess because Dawn H is moving this transaction over to the purchases field for me, I even get the miles I set out o get in the first place. Initially, the CS supervisor I had spoken with told me that ALL gift card purchases are cash advances and that the merchants do this. But I know better and pointed to a few older charges on my CC statements to prove her wrong. I said that due to the existence of my $100 limit letter from citi and due to the fact I had bought other things and always watch and pay of my entire balance, I never could have seen this one coming. Dawn said she thinks the merchant, in this case AAA, did something wrong. I will find out more if I can after lambasting them for their round about tactics of trickery that almost cost me some serious interest and fees!
:)MM
Answer
I had the same idea for racking up membership rewards points on my Amex card-- purchasing Visa travelers checks/cards. I'm a little leery now that I read your story. I wanted to try to get the terms at the AAA site, and I found this:
Mastercard® and Visa® cards: With the exception of the use of the AAA Credit Card, your travelers cheque purchase is subject to cash advance fees imposed by your credit card issuer. See your cardholder agreement for details.
http://www.aaa-texas.com/travel/tmoney.asp
Answer
The issue is not just with AAA, it's with Citibank. It's up to the merchant to determine if a charge is a cash advance or purcahse.
Was it worth the effort for 1500 miles?
Answer
The issue is not just with AAA, it's with Citibank. It's up to the merchant to determine if a charge is a cash advance or purcahse.
Was it worth the effort for 1500 miles?
Did you mean for your reply to be condescending? Because you came off that way. Was it worth 1500 miles?
Is half the stuff we do worth the miles? I guess its up the individual.
Ken in Phx
Answer
I actually have a print out of the terms BEFORE the 27th where it is different. NO MENTION of the cash advance.
then someone else pm'd me that they had dealt with something like this recently whereas the terms now say it MAY charge as a cash advance. I have not looked--and I since got it totally resolved with Citi. I got a call back from a manager at AAA who told me this:
1) they tried to run it thru at $1500. It got declined.
Then they tried to run it thru as $1. It got approved.
Then they manually ran thru the rest of it under that same approval code for $1 and it all went thru, thereby superceding my limit! Citi agreed this was bad and though it may work or be legal, it would be less the type of activity they woudl like from other banks or merchants so the manager notified mastercard international about it. In the meantime, she moved my CA for 1500 to PURCHASES and yes, I will now (I should) get the miles!
In terms of it being worth it, Yep, if I can grab what seems like 1500 miles and be able to reload this and do it again, it will be worth it.
There have been reloadable gift cards out there where you could at one time do up to 10,000 a month, and this could have been--should have been one of them. But no.
Well, it got resolved on my end, so I hope no one else got burned.
;)MM
Answer
I actually have a print out of the terms BEFORE the 27th where it is different. NO MENTION of the cash advance.
;)MM
well, truthfully, I am surprised you have a record of no cash advance
the AAA site I go to (southern NE) has always said that a travelmoney card may be charged as a cash advance. and further, I had to talk to a Travelex CSR before the card was actually shipped due to an address problem, and she very firmly and politely told me it WOULD be charged as a cash advance, so at that point I cancelled the request
Travelex, btw, issues all of AAA's money products. when I buy traveler checks from AAA the charge is very clearly labeled "NFI cash equivalent" where NFI is non-financial institution. I guess that's why it gets through w/o an ATM charge
also, until recently discontinued, pricegrabber.com gift cards could be charged as a purchase on AMEX even though AMEX is pretty tough on cash equivalents - the reason might be because the gift card came through coded as "heavy construction equipment" (something like that)
anyway, cash advance or not may have as much to do with the way in which the seller codes the charge as it does with credit card policy
Regards
PS regarding using the $1 approval to get the $1500 charge approved - when I was in retail I would use ANY trick to get a charge approved, else I would loose the sale for sure, very few were reversed, of course that was 10 years ago, a different age...
edited for clarity
Answer
well, truthfully, I am surprised you have a record of no cash advance
the AAA site I go to (southern NE) has always said that a travelmoney card may be charged as a cash advance. and further, I had to talk to a Travelex CSR before the card was actually shipped due to an address problem, and she very firmly and politely told me it WOULD be charged as a cash advance, so at that point I cancelled the request
Travelex, btw, issues all of AAA's money products. when I buy traveler checks from AAA the charge is very clearly labeled "NFI cash equivalent" where NFI is non-financial institution. I guess that's why it gets through w/o an ATM charge
also, until recently discontinued, pricegrabber.com gift cards could be charged as a purchase on AMEX even though AMEX is pretty tough on cash equivalents - the reason might be because the gift card came through coded as "heavy construction equipment" (something like that)
anyway, cash advance or not may have as much to do with the way in which the seller codes the charge as it does with credit card policy
Regards
PS regarding using the $1 approval to get the $1500 charge approved - when I was in retail I would use ANY trick to get a charge approved, else I would loose the sale for sure, very few were reversed, of course that was 10 years ago, a different age...
edited for clarity
RE: Cash Advance:
my CSRs never mentioned it.
When I made my initial errors, they mentioned "calling to confirm address" as the main reason for their calls to me.
Terms I printed out had nothing about it anywhere.
I looked a lot and sure, I could have missed it, but some things do appear to have slightly changed as well.
I think the $1 move is kinda slimy. How it superceded my CA limit is beyond me. Just tonight, in fact, to prevent this from happening again, I contacted Citi again and had them reduce my CA limit to ZERO. Now such $1 authorizations for CA's will NOT go thru.
Interestingly, US Bank (NWA WP Visa) will NOT reduce or remove CA's. Nor will United's Bank One visa. I tried and tried. I did get a supervisor from BankOne to do what she called a "security watch" on my account, meaning that they should contact me (by cell) if some merchant ever tries to put thru a CA (or even if I ever do, which I don't plan to!)
BTW< from what Citi told me, it's ALWAYS the merchant that codes them CA or purchase. BUT US Bank had coded a few things in the past as CA's that, on other cards, had come thru as purchases. I had bought other gift cards in my past. 99% of the ones I have found are purchases. Many of these have appeared on my Citi statement as well as the US Bank statement, yeilding many a AA and NWA mile.
Either way, the entire thing is over now but I sure need to be extra careful so as to prevnt some of this stuff in the future. I posted this simply to inform others to not make the same mistakes. Anyone treating this entire thread any other way need not reply. I generally think the credit cards are pretty tricky, and so are some larger merchants. I don't know why they wish to charge certain things as Cash Advances vs. purchases--maybe it's a fee savings issue or something--but I watch what I do. Yet, we all make mistakes. I was lucky to catch this one this time. It is rare for me to have this type of thing happen to me and my credit cards. Things are very complex these days, with the internet and all. And how many times have people here tried to buy things and run into CSRs that are less informed than we are. That didn't used to happen back in the day either.
Just be careful, mates!
:)MM
Answer
RE: Cash Advance:
my CSRs never mentioned it.
When I made my initial errors, they mentioned "calling to confirm address" as the main reason for their calls to me.
Terms I printed out had nothing about it anywhere.
I looked a lot and sure, I could have missed it, but some things do appear to have slightly changed as well.
Interestingly, US Bank (NWA WP Visa) will NOT reduce or remove CA's. Nor will United's Bank One visa. I tried and tried. I did get a supervisor from BankOne to do what she called a "security watch" on my account, meaning that they should contact me (by cell) if some merchant ever tries to put thru a CA (or even if I ever do, which I don't plan to!)
Just be careful, mates!
:)MM
For folks with a card from Bankone: I called VISA(18005377783) and had a CSR look at my account. Based on the info, you need to have the CSR submit a workcase request(CIDW) with appropriate info. The system will pass it on the correct dept. I hope this helps.
Answer
RE: Cash Advance:
my CSRs never mentioned it.
Terms I printed out had nothing about it anywhere.
I looked a lot and sure, I could have missed it, but some things do appear to have slightly changed as well.
:)MM
well, the reason you may have missed it is because the warning only shows up during the actual pruchase process, not in terms and conditions etc. on my screens however, the warning is in red letters
Answer
The issue is not just with AAA, it's with Citibank. It's up to the merchant to determine if a charge is a cash advance or purcahse.
Was it worth the effort for 1500 miles?
You are mistaken, the problem is with AAA : as they disclose in the fine print they put the charge through as a cash advance, so they don't have to pay the credit card discount. When I placed one order 6 months ago online, they actually called me to verify that I was authorizing a cash advance ! Of course I cancelled the order.
Answer
I think that the biggest problem is that there was no "red" warning that it may be put thru as a CA. That is a new addition. Also, the rep on the phone, when she wasnt yawning and acting uninterested was that the defintely go thru as a CA. However, there website site the "may" go thru as a CA. In my opinion, there is a huge difference between "may" and "will". Either way, I canceled my AAA acct and will no longer do business with them, as Travelex seems awfully shady for a big company.
Ken in Phx