Recap: Avianca Claw Back, Business Class Lounge For Economy Passengers & More

 

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horrible run bank
horrible run bank (@guest_405414)
May 12, 2017 04:49

Aviancia CC
Oh and you are not allowed to talk to the credit department, you must talk to outsourced csr at Popular Community bank. The cc department only sends letters, which they actually don’t send and just tell you to get you off the phone. Also don’t call too late or too early as they have limited csr hours even for fraud.
Good Luck!!

horrible run bank
horrible run bank (@guest_405412)
May 12, 2017 04:47

Anybody who has gone thru with the process of applying for an Aviancia cc (see flyertalk thread) knows that this bank is completely utterly, incompetent.
As for me I ended up with 2 hard pulls, lost application, system down, csr who can’t reveal your status, expired application and no approval. All of this with 250K in the bank’s saving acct.
The bank sucks and they can keep their card.
Anybody who wins against this bank deserves their hard fought bonus.

NinjaX
NinjaX (@guest_373943)
March 21, 2017 00:20

haha. wow. Emirates Now Gives Business Class Lounge Access to Economy Passengers? good luck with that. SMH. how does that even make sense? thats like Amex Cent Lounge open to all CCs. Already bad enough with Plats.

Frank
Frank (@guest_373863)
March 20, 2017 22:19

What noble churners we have here

gary
gary (@guest_373854)
March 20, 2017 21:59

The deal was to get the card, pay at least the first year annual fee and get a bonus. Sure, some people would cancel after one year. We have varying opinions on that, but at least each side held their side of the bargain. I have collected close to a million points in the last year and cancelled lots of cards, but NEVER, EVER skipped out on the original agreement. And never until at least the renewal.

The bank is 100% right in taking back those miles. The end user did not live up to the agreement. Bad, very bad.

Churner
Churner (@guest_373806)
March 20, 2017 20:36

So the solution to the clawbacks is to book a flight to use up the miles, and then close the card to refund the annual fee. Got it!

ihg newbie
ihg newbie (@guest_373634)
March 20, 2017 16:45

well, he got exactly what he deserves.
there would be no restrictive rules like the chase 5/24 and amex once in a lifetime if some people weren’t so greedy and stupid.

GDoe
GDoe (@guest_373756)
March 20, 2017 19:22

These are all shades of gray. I know plenty of people who consider signing up for credit cards just to get a bonus (no matter minimum spending or not) immoral. For those of us who do that, the line should be legality of the act. If it is legal it is acceptable.

Gary
Gary (@guest_373383)
March 20, 2017 11:57

Not only should the miles be clawed back, but someone should be clawing that greedy foolish immoral person for even trying this.

Lantean
Lantean (@guest_373364)
March 20, 2017 11:41

closing a card without min spend requirement after getting the bonus to get the AF refunded is simply just greed… any person with common sense would keep it for 11 months.

Mser
Mser (@guest_373540)
March 20, 2017 14:56

Oh, quit the oh-so-predictable moralizing. But for guys like him, we’d have never found out about those redunculous Citi AA Exec cards a few years ago with the 100K AA and $200 AF credit that could be cancelled as soon as miles hit and then could reapply. Good times! Family got over 2MM AA and tons of cash bonuses signing up repeatedly.

But that’s the only time I’ve done it.

italdesign
italdesign (@guest_373551)
March 20, 2017 15:07

Very good point.

Lantean
Lantean (@guest_373581)
March 20, 2017 15:33

but those cards did have min spend requirement at least…

sirtheta
sirtheta(@sirtheta)
March 20, 2017 15:40

While I agree that we shouldn’t moralize here, taking advantage of issuers in this way is very bad for the long-term health of both your relationship with a bank & churning.

Is it any wonder that Citi instituted a 24-month rule given your comment & others who took advantage of similar situations?

There is a certain give-and-take at play in churning, and one of the things we have to accept is that certain strategies are extremely unprofitable for issuers and will piss them off. This is definitely one of them.

While it is impossible to have the population at large play within some sort of confined rule set (i.e. there will always be some who test the limits), that doesn’t mean we can’t look at such a behavior and go: “that’s a bad idea for the long-term viability of X thing the behavior affects”.

(Were it not for the clawback, we could look at closing the Avianca card to get the AF refunded as threatening the long-term viability of Avianca bonuses. But in this case, the clawback demonstrates that Banco Popular is rather on top of things & the long-term viability is likely not affected.)

Eric
Eric (@guest_374241)
March 21, 2017 13:08

Many people (including me) have “moralized” on DoC in the past (and in this post). What is the reason you are against it? If people steal or lie are you saying that’s okay?

sirtheta
sirtheta(@sirtheta)
March 21, 2017 13:28

It depends on the situation; I’m not against moralizing in the abstract. In this situation, the terms of the Avianca bonus* do not state that you need to pay the annual fee in order to get the bonus. We can go back and forth over whether it’s overly greedy (I certainly think so), but I think it would be rather hard to move beyond personal morals and into an ethical framework where canceling for an AF refund is “wrong”. As such, there’s an impasse between people who find it morally repugnant and those who have no problem with it.

So, I find it more convincing to move to a more neutral ground where the behavior (canceling for an AF refund) is situated in the context of its impact on an issuer, which is that they handed out a bunch of LifeMiles and go absolutely nothing in return. That would make it a bad idea because the issuer would’ve been likely to implement more restrictive rules in the future and it harms your relationship with them. (Except the clawback indicates that Banco Popular was prepared for this & acted accordingly, which is good for the long-term viability of their bonuses.)

*reproduced here: “To qualify and receive your welcome bonus LifeMiles offer, you must make an eligible purchase with your Card within the first ninety (90) days of your Account opening date. The welcome bonus LifeMiles earned will appear in your LifeMiles member account within 6 to 8 weeks after your first eligible purchase was made to the Account, so long as your membership with LifeMiles has been confirmed, and the eligible purchase occurred within the 90 days previously referred to. To be eligible for this welcome bonus LifeMiles offer, your Account must remain open and in good standing on billing statement closing date where the first eligible purchase made to the Account is reflected.”

Eric
Eric (@guest_374445)
March 21, 2017 18:24

When you wrote “here” I thought you meant on DoC. Now I see you meant for this exact situation only.

I have read many questionable things that people have written about here (ie people defrauding Jetblue) and I usually only speak up if it’s especially repugnant.

Since I didn’t read the article that Will linked to I can’t comment on whether I agree with you or not.